I could've talked about this a couple weeks ago, too, when I talked about our trip to Buffalo, but I thought it would be better to describe it on the actual day. At the first wedding of the summer, the DJ did a "Anniversary" dance (I think that was what it was called). What happens is all married couples start out on the dancefloor. Then the DJ starts to whittle away at the remaining couples by progressively increasing the number of years you have to have been married to keep dancing. Mark and I were gone by the second measure. But his parents didn't leave the floor until the man said, "If you've been married 30 years, keep dancing." This jogged one of their sons' memories (I can't remember which one - means it probably wasn't Mark :)) that their 30th anniversary was coming up. The sole woman in this conversation, I decide Something has to be done for them. We realized Mark and I would be in Buffalo fairly close to the big day, so we decided we could do Something then. But what? The Boys come up with dinner at a pretty swanky Italian place. I think it's a great start, but we should do More. Figuring we have the whole summer to work this out, we decide that we'll do dinner and come up with the details later.
As the summer drags on, I thought of taking my mother-in-law to a spa while the Boys went rock climbing. Finding a spa in the Buffalo area was an experience. I was brutal with several internet search engines. I combed through whatever I could find on the web. And then I started calling. For starters, the people I talked to seemed disconcerted that I was calling from Colorado. Then they also seemed offended when I asked to schedule a spa package on a particular day. One spa told me that she would need X,Y, and Z to accomodate my request. So I gave her the information she needed for X,Y, and Z. Then she told me she couldn't set up the appointment because Soanso wasn't there today. She asked me to call back the next day. And I scratched their name off my list. The phone number for another spa led to an answering machine that said, "We will be closed for the Memorial Day Weekend...". Considering that I was calling them in mid-July, I scratched them off my list too. Finally I found a professional receptionist that handled my request in stride and we were good to go.
I should mention that we only told the happy couple that they didn't have to plan anything for the Friday we would be in town. We didn't tell them why. You should have seen the tricks Mom used to pry information out of us. Yet we didn't break.
Friday rolls around and they still have no idea what's happening. The Boys go climbing, and I give the street address for where Mom and I need to go. That's it. She didn't know what was at that location until she pulled into the parking lot. That was fun. And then she had a massage while I had a facial, so I told the woman where we were going to dinner. And to pass the news on to everyone but Mom. Everywhere Mom went that day, people in the spa kept coming up to her and saying, "Hey, you're going to have fun at dinner tonight. It's a great place." Or just the very enjoyable, "I know where you're going to dinner. But I can't tell you." (The "neener, neener, neener" was implied, of course.)
Dinner time arrived. We told the parental units that semi-formal attire would be a good bet. Then we kids jumped in one car and told Mom and Dad to follow us in another. We got to the street of the really fancy place. Figuring that they might be on to the surprise, we decide to blow right past where we were actually going to eat and pull into a subway joint instead. We even got out of the car and started walking toward the door before we called the joke. Then we all piled into the real restaurant and ate like kings. The restaurant had even set up the ceilings to look like stars (we were sitting right under a shooting star).
So that was how the kids celebrated Mom and Dad's 30th anniversary. Now we'll need to start planning the big 5-0.
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