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Today is my parents' Golden Anniversary. They've been married fifty years! Quite an accomplishment these days.
To celebrate, my family (parents, sister's family, my family) went to Lincoln City on the beautiful Oregon Coast this past weekend. We'd offered to send my parents on a cruise or wherever they wanted to go, but my dad wanted to go to Lincoln City and stay at the Chinook Winds' Casino Resort. So that's what what we did. We wanted to make the weekend special for our parents so made them a gift basket with lots of goodies in it and their presents and had a cake and favors, too. They seemed to like everything so that was a huge sigh of relief!
The kids had a blast playing on the sand, even though it was a little chilly. I had one kid in sweats and a sweatshirt and another out there in swimming trunks! They also went swimming in the pool and hung out in the arcade. Rose hit a big jackpot and won enough tickets to get a little pillow pal lion. She was so excited! They had so much fun they want to return to the coast with everyone this summer.
Even though my sister and I wanted to take care of everything, my parents had the weekend all planned out from meal times and where to eat to Mass. But we surprised them on Saturday morning with the basket, and then again after dinner on Saturday night with the cake. As for meals, we had big, loud family dinners. We ate only one lunch without my parents because we were with the kids while they were gambling!
I had been to the casino a few times before. If you remember my trip report from November, Jenna Bayley-Burke, Terri Reed and I tried out for the Wheel of Fortune there. I'm not a big gambler, but my parents like to go there. But I had to admit I was surprised to see that my parents know so many people who work there from the the shuttle van driver to the waiter, not to mention dealers and pit bosses, etc.
When I accompanied my dad to the craps table, it reminded me of the theme song from Cheers. You know the line "where everybody knows your name." The name they knew wasn't Norm, but Ross. My dad.
The craps dealers knew my dad well. They knew he has bad hearing. They had his betting strategy down so would remind him if he forgot to do something. I became known as "daughter of Ross" whenever I'd place a bet on the table. It was so funny, and sort of made me feel like I was in Lord of the Ring or something.
After hanging out with my dad, I left him and hubby to join my mom at the slots, which is her game. (My dad prefers craps and blackjack.) She and my hubby made fun of me for wanting to play the penny slots and only wager 9 cents at a time. I had plenty of fun doing that ($20 lasted about four hours on Friday evening), but they thought I was crazy. I kept reminding them I wasn't a big gambler but that didn't stop the teasing about my "high" stakes betting!
On Saturday night, my mom played the machine I'd played on Friday night. She, however, bets the maximum allowed which was $1.80. She turned her $20 into $400. Hubby made her cash out, even though he thought she should call it quits at $200! Me, I was still betting 9 cents at time. So was my sister on the machine next to me. She parlayed her $5 into $17 after about 3 hours sitting at the same penny machine. I lost $6 of my $20.
We left the coast yesterday and swung by the outlet malls on our way out to see if we could find any bargain. Stopped off at the Otis Cafe to pick up a loaf of molasses bread. Then went straight to the kennel to get Chaos. We had a catsitter taking care of the cats. My parents stayed over so they could spent the actual day of their anniversary there.
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! Hope you're having a great day and that Lady Luck is smiling down on you!
