35th anniversary

We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary yesterday.
On Sunday evening, my parents threw us a party.


When my parents had their 35th anniversary, my mom's church in Pandora, Ohio had a party for them. Mom kept the cake topper from that time and used it to top our cake.

The 35th wedding anniversary is the jade anniversary. Well, traditionally it would have been the coral anniversary but I guess the contemporary is jade. It is traditional to give a gift to your spouse or to couples that symbolize the particular anniversary; typically these are made of a different material for each wedding anniversary.

Here are some of our jade presents; a jade bracelet, a novel titled "The Jade Bracelet", a "jade tie".

Mom and Dad even dressed jade colors for the occasion.

The first anniversary is the paper anniversary. Here is a picture from that year!

I put on my wedding dress (wish I could still do that!!) and we got lots of paper products from the folks. I'm holding our wedding photo. Get a load of Al's pants!! And the orange plastic sofa that came with our furnished apartment at Stouffer married student housing at KU!

Mom had these sparklers to put in our desserts, but we found much more interesting things to do with them!

Yesterday was the actual date for our anniversary and we decided to go to

It was wonderful! Thanks for the suggestion, Andrea! We split a Cluck-n-Oink; rotisserie chicken and bunkhouse St. Louis ribs served with redskin mashed potatoes and sweet glazed carrots. Oh my!

The manager came over to talk with us and when he found out it was our anniversary, he gave us a complimentary dessert called Something Chocolate. Ice-cream sandwiched between brownies topped with caramel and chocolate sauce, walnuts and some kind of whipped topping that was to die for!

We couldn't finish it. Unfortunately, we couldn't doggie bag it since the ice-cream would have melted before we got home. Afterall, we had to make a stop at Home Depot! So romantic huh?? But we needed some door knobs and window shades and such for the basement that is in process.

We had such fun reminiscing about that day in 1975 - even how when we arrived at our hotel the first night we found out that they had given our room away that we had pre-picked! This bride burst into tears and the manager felt so bad he gave us the honeymoon sweet that this poor couple would never have been able to afford. (we spent an entire $275 on the honeymoon to Texas 6 Flags and back! And that included the quarters you could put in the "massage" bed at Motel 6! It was so funny we put in a few of those!!)

Love you more than the day we married! Happy 35th honey!!