Our Other Auction Win

If you read this blog regularly, you may remember that about a month ago, Shawn and I went to a charity auction/dinner. Feel free to read this post that explains all about the auction and the wonderful "date night" package that we won. Like I said in that post, we went into the live auction portion of the evening expecting absolutely to be outbid on everything we wanted to try for, but we came up with some "maximum amounts" that we'd be willing to pay for a few items so that we could have the fun of participating in the bidding.

One of the things we decided to bid on was the last item of the night. We were both thinking that the biggest ticket item is usually left for last at an auction (right?), and there was no way we could afford what this item would go for. But wouldn't it be fun to say we bid on it? As the auction progressed, we were amazed at the amounts some of the items were going for. To put this in perspective, our "maximum bid" for the last item of the night was less than what a Cajun dinner for 8 went for ($2400) or what a relatively small stained glass window went for ($1800).

When the bidding started for this last item, there were quite a few who offered at the opening bid, but it quickly dwindled to just Shawn against another guy. The bidding went quickly, up by $100 at a time, back and forth. Shawn bid what we had agreed would be our maximum bid, fully expecting the other guy to bid the next amount.....but the bidding fell silent. And we won!

So what did we win? A 7-night stay at a beachfront condo in MAUI!!! Holy cow!!!! As soon as the auctioneer declared Shawn the winning bidder, I think we looked at each other and quickly said, "What did we just do?!"

Fortunately, plane tickets to Hawaii from Seattle really aren't all that expensive. In fact, it's probably cheaper (most times of the year) to fly to Hawaii than it is to fly to Ohio to visit my parents. I booked our flights this afternoon, and although it cost a bit more than I was hoping, it really wasn't bad at all. So in about six weeks, we'll be going to Maui!

I'm really excited for this. Shawn has been to Hawaii before (I think a couple times, actually), but I've never been. For awhile now, it's been on my list of places that I'd really like to go. (Just to prove it, check out this list I made in March...Hawaii is on there.) This was definitely an impulse buy, and had we really taken our time to think about it, we probably wouldn't have bid on this item (just to save money, especially after all our travels already this summer). But hey...it is something we knew we'd enjoy, and how often in our lives will we genuinely be able to afford a beachfront condo in Maui? We got it for less than it's technically worth. And frankly, it's really nice to know that since the owner of the condo donated this week to the auction, our good chunk of money is actually going to a very worthy cause...and we just happen to get an awesome vacation out of it! :)