Eating contest...

Shane and Lauren had an eating contest the other night. The background on this "family tradition" goes back to Shane's cousin, Amanda's, wedding. Shane and his cousin, Sean (Alex's brother), decided to bring a little fun to our table at the rehearsal dinner. Another tradition in our family is that everyone in the family (regardless of whether or not they are in the wedding) get to come to the rehearsal dinner. I think Shane and I may have started it.... Anyway, Shane and Sean decided they each had to eat everything that was served - this included the vegetables (which neither was too excited about)! Sean is built like Shane (tall and slender - he hates being called skinny!). The prize for the winner was the loser had to be the winner's slave the next day as we all got to enjoy the sights of Houston before the evening wedding. It came down to the dessert (the "speed round") - shoving cheesecake down as fast as you could and swallowing. If any part of dinner came back to haunt, the game was lost. Shane ended up winning by a smidgen. Sean put up a good fight, but had to spend the next day with us at numerous museums (Children's and Natural History are two I remember).



So, back to Shane and Lauren. We went to IHOP for dinner with Alex on one of her last nights here in Vegas before she left for a 6 month Texas trip. Shane prefaced his order with "I am going to order a lot of food" to the waiter. He did - 3 egg omelet (bacon, tomatoes, cheese), side of hasbrowns, and not just the regular pancake side, but the NEW! Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes:

Four fluffy buttermilk pancakes filled with
pecans, granola and butterscotch chips,
then topped with whipped topping and
drizzled with caramel sauce

Lauren ordered a regular kids meal with chicken strips. Both are notoriously famous for not finishing their meals anyway. Somewhere in the middle of the meal, the gauntlet was thrown and both were made to finish their meals. Both of them actually did finish. Not wanting a tie, we were looking for a tie breaker. I had not eaten my eggs (over hard, so no runnyness or anything). Alex and I thought the only fair thing to do would be to split the egg 3/4 and 1/4 for the speed round since Lauren is roughly 1/4 Shane's weight. Shane cut his egg up into quarters and shoved them all in at once. Lauren went for the more delicate nibble. As Alex and I yelled at Lauren to shove the whole egg in, she became more into the race aspect! She lost by a little bit.


Shane regretted the contest all night as he was very close to losing on a technicality of not keeping dinner down. Lauren spent all night right by his side trying to "help" him lose. We all also found out Lauren is a very bad loser. She didn't want to be his slave because she wanted to win and have him be her slave. She did a few things grudgingly, but all in all will not be asked to be part of any more contests until her attitude can change about losing....