On wife’s advice, man buys $1 mil Powerball ticket By Julianne Logan

Twenty-five years ago, Alvin Yazzie made a promise to his wife on their wedding night. One day, he said, he’d take her on the trip of a lifetime.

Little did he know that on Wednesday, he’d finally be able to fulfill that promise.

Yazzie became an instant millionaire after his wife urged him to buy a ticket for this past week’s $400 million Powerball jackpot.

Yazzie said he plays the lottery whenever he thinks the jackpot is high enough.

He hadn’t planned to buy a ticket for Wednesday’s drawing until his wife insisted.

He bought the ticket at a Cir- cle K in Chandler, but didn’t think anything of it until he heard someone had won. During a lunch break, he decided to check his numbers.

“I had one number, then two, then three numbers,” he said. “Then I saw the fourth and thought, ‘That’s cool.’ ”

“Then I got the fifth number and was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” Yazzie said. “Me winning, getting five numbers, that’s crazy.”

He was in such disbelief that he immediately called his wife, who lives in New Mexico.

The coupled both checked, double-checked and triplechecked the numbers against the Powerball website to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, Yazzie said.

“It’s true I did win, it’s offi- cial,” Yazzie said he told his wife. “Thanks for asking me to get that ticket!”

Though he missed the $400 million jackpot by one number, he walked away with the lump sum of $1 million dollars and isn’t complaining.

“Well, I was little upset, but you can’t win them all,” he said. “I was just thanking God for giving me that money.”

Yazzie is from New Mexico and has spent the last few months away from his wife and family working in Phoenix, but he said he does not plan to quit his job anytime soon. A million dollars is a lot of money, he said, but it won’t last forever.

He said he plans to use some of his winnings on a trip home to see his family and to pay bills. But he’s most excited to finally take his wife on their longawaited vacation

“We just celebrated our 25th anniversary in December,” Yazzie said. “I promised her a trip to Hawaii, and now it’s finally going to happen. I couldn’t be happier.”