What a weekend! Bay spins up Lady Luck

Whakatane woman Kathy Laugesen has made history as the first person to spin and win the top Lotto Winning Wheel prize of $1 million, a Kawerau woman was given a new garden courtesy of the Mucking In programme and a Rotorua ticket won a top line car in Lotto's special Father's Day draw.
Mrs Laugesen said that winning $1 million live on television on Saturday night was "totally unexpected and I'm a bit stunned."
"We haven't really decided what we're going to do with $1 million, but it is definitely going to make a huge difference to our lives," she said.
She and her husband Mark have two grown up children and said they plan to spend some of their prize on a trip to Los Angeles to visit their daughter as well as renovating their kitchen.
"I was really nervous and thought for a while that I hadn't spun the wheel quite hard enough. When it landed on the million dollar prize my mind went blank for what seemed like ages.
"I'm told there were people in the TV studio yelling and screaming with delight but I didn't hear any of that.
"And then there was confetti everywhere and I realised I really had won a million dollars."
Mrs Laugesen is a horticulturist.
She and her husband Mark are developing an avocado plantation on land in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
The 58th person to spin the wheel, Mrs Laugesen is a regular Lotto player and always picks her own numbers each week. She bought her Winning Wheel winning ticket at Whakatane's New World supermarket.
"We found it pretty hard to get to sleep on Saturday night," she said. "And we have just been besieged by calls from heaps of well-wishers.
"The Lotto people at Avalon Studios were great. They really looked after us and without winning a cent, the free weekend in Wellington was a wonderful prize on its own.
"We are not going to make any plans to move anywhere else. Our life will just go on. Let's just say at this stage we have got our superannuation worries sorted."
Until now, the biggest Lotto Winning Wheel winners had won either $500,000 cash or a $500,000 house and land package. Other winners have also taken away luxury Bentley, Aston Martin and Volkswagen cars, a holiday cruise, and shopping sprees.
The average value of prizes on the Winning Wheel is $221,369.
In January, Rotorua woman Jane Eynon-Richards spun the wheel on behalf of her husband Nick and fellow Rotorua couple Brian and Elaine Fox, winning $175,000.
On Saturday night another lucky Rotorua punter won a Ford Performance Vehicle (FPV) F6 Typhoon car, after buying a Triple Dip ticket from Paper Plus in Tutanekai St.
Ten of the cars were up for grabs as part of a special Lotto Father's Day competition.
Mrs Laugesen is not the only woman from the region to have been on the receiving end of some televised good fortune this weekend.
Last night's episode of Mucking In on TV One featured Kaingaroa woman Linda Tau, who has been one of the leaders in the battle to save local jobs and companies from closure. She is widely regarded as saving the town from oblivion. Among her many contributions to Kawerau has been enticing doctors back to the town and having its aging houses insulated. She has frequently championed the causes of those in need and has been widely regarded as the town's "unofficial mayor".
The Kaingaroa community gathered together and enlisted the help of the Mucking In team to thank Mrs Tau with a new garden.