Fateful Numbers?

I recently had an odd experience with numbers. Tell me: is this a fateful encounter?

I was chatting with my students about the fact that it's almost Shakespeare's birthday. I did a little math to find out how old he would be this year--and the answer was 444. I found this interesting, because before we had children, my husband and I lived at that address--444 Washington. I didn't think much of it until a few nights later, when I couldn't sleep all night long, and at one point looked up to see what time it was, and--you guessed it--it was 4:44.

The next day I told my husband of this odd occurrence, and jokingly said that we should play the number in Little Lotto (which is the Illinois three-number lottery game). We didn't, mostly because we're lazy and we're not in the habit of playing the lottery.

So time went by, and then my husband sent me an e-mail, saying that he'd gone online to check, just out of curiosity, and found that the number 444 had won the Little Lotto about two weeks before.

So tell me, numbers people. Is this just a normal coincidence, or did I miss a giant gift of Fate?

(I took this cool photo in the Michigan woods).