Celebrating 20 Years....with 10,000 of our closest friends.

Heading out for my morning run....-1 below at 5:00 a.m., according to our thermostat. Chip thinks I'm a "stud." I'll take that as a compliment.



Celebating our 20th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

So, last month we decided to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary by going to see Dave Matthews (who we both love) in Las Vegas. We left on Thursday, driving in lieu of flying because Rich's health is just too precarious to get non-refundable tickets to anywhere right now.

Actually, driving to Las Vegas together was fun. We talked.....a lot. And, we were able to eat at Subway and listen to NPR without any protests from the kids. As you can see, our trip was getting off to a lively start.

We got to Vegas about 5:00....starving (Subway only lasts so long), and immediately headed off to dinner at a very overpriced restaurant in the MGM Casino. After dinner we enjoyed a couple of drinks at a really fun bar....I had two wonderful martinis (gin, extra dry and straight up, just like I like 'em), and then headed off to the concert. Dave Matthews was playing at Planet Hollywood; this was an acoustic concert with just him and his lead guitarist, Tim Reynolds. The venue only held about 10,000, so there wasn't a bad seat in the place. It was an absolutely amazing concert. He really puts on a show and gives you your money's worth. We were sitting by some real die hard fans who follow him all over (known as groupies back in the day) which made it even more fun. After the concert we headed back to our hotel and didn't get to bed until 1:00 a.m., which made us feel like we'd really accomplished something. I mean, this was our 20th anniversary celebration, and we were in Las Vegas, so we kind of felt obligated to stay up extra late.

We slept until 9:00 the next morning, courtesy of the lovely privacy blinds in our hotel room. We attempted to take a stroll down the strip, and after purchasing the much requested items for Caitlin and Sam at M&M World, we'd had enough of the strip. So, we headed down to a really nice outdoor mall we'd gone to with the kids a little over a year ago. We spent a couple of hours in Borders, drinking coffee and looking at books, followed by lunch at a wonderful restaurant with 100 microbrews on tap, and then went to see "Precious" at the theater there. We had a great day. We momentarily entertained the idea of going to see Bill Engvall, who we both think is very funny, but it didn't start until 9:00 that night, and we had stayed out until 1:00 the night before so......

We headed back to out hotel and enjoyed a celebratory glass of champagne, followed by the buffet, which for me consisted of about one pound of peel and eat shrimp and a couple of decadent chocolate desserts. Were in bed by 9:30....in an attempt to balance out our sleep time from the night before, of course.

We had an absolutely wonderful time together. However, we have concluded that we are not "Vegas people." It is a really fun place to be, and you can people watch to your heart's content. However, I think our next anniversary celebration will be in wine country, San Francisco, or Seattle.

We were so happy to see the kiddos, who were wined and dined by Grandma all weekend. I'm not sure they were nearly as happy to see us :)

Twenty years is really an accomplishment, in my opinion. Not many people in my family have been married that long, and if they have, it's their second marriage. I take immense satisfaction in knowing that we have been married for TWENTY years, endured some pretty challenging times, and are more content than we've ever been. Content in a good way, too....not in a "going through the motions" way. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be married to someone who is so invested in my well being.

The icing on the cake is that even though we came home to a driveway that needed shoveling, it is no longer frigid cold, so tomorrow's run will be sloppy but warm. Oh, life is good.