Susan surprised me yesterday with a night out on the town to celebrate our anniversary. As of next Tuesday Susan and I will have been married for thirteen years, but since I’ll be out of town in Kansas City, Missouri for work next week, Susan decided to plan something special the weekend before.

After dropping Mason and Morgan off at Granny’s, our first stop was the Skirvin Plaza hotel in downtown OKC. The Skirvin is super fancy; it originally opened in 1911 (just four years after Oklahoma became a state) and was where the rich and famous mingled. The hotel closed in the 1980s, but was reopened a few years ago after a $50+ million dollar facelift. I’m not usually one to go crazy over wood work and interior design, but this place has to be seen to be believed.

After dropping off our bags, it was off to Riverwind Casino, just south of Norman. We’ve been to the casino half a dozen times before, but it just sounded like a fun place to go.

We ate dinner at Riverwind, and since it was our special night out, we ate dessert first. Take that, kids! The Riverwind buffet recently added a chocolate fondue fountain and boy was it good.

After Susan doubled her money and I lost all of mine, we left Riverwind and drove to the Warren Theater in Moore.

Neither Susan nor myself had been to the Warren Theater, but we had heard wonderful things and we were (for the most part) not disappointed. While the theater’s screens are gigantic and the sound system is the loudest I’ve ever heard, the real treat is the theater’s balcony seats. They’re love seats with optional dividing arm and foot rests. The seats come with a seat warmer (which Susan loved) and a call button that sent a member of the theater’s wait staff sailing over to take your order.

The only problem we encountered was that places that serve alcohol occasionally end up with patrons who drink too much of it. The guy next to us blabbed on his cell phone, laughed too loudly, spilled his beer and eventually began talking (and later shouting) at the people on the screen. Did I mention balcony tickets cost $18? That’s too much money to put up with an ass like that. I mentioned something to one of the waiters and they told me that if it continued to please let them know. The jerk continued to get louder, we pressed the button, and our waiter kindly relocated us to another pair of seats far away from the obnoxious drunkard (who we later saw being escorted out of the theater).

We saw Tropic Thunder which was a throw-away comedy, but the actual experience was terrific. I can’t want for the next blockbuster to come along so that we can go back and see it there!

The movie ended just after midnight, at which point we drove back to the Skirvin.

We spent a few minutes taking dumb pictures on and around the Skirvin’s fancy finishings.

Eventually we found our way back to our room, where the hotel had left us a bottle of champagne and a note wishing us a happy anniversary!