When five strangers met across a dining table on a gambling riverboat cruise on the Mississippi River, a lifetime friendship and a love for each other was born. We found we had a lot in common, and Stan, Carol, Norman, Phyllis, and Joan closed down the restaurant enjoying each others company that first night.
Over the course of the first evening, we discovered a mutual love for good food, exciting gambling, and vacationing at world-class casinos such as Sun Vegas Online Casino. Carol and Norman explored the spark they felt for one another and didn’t leave each others side for the rest of the weekend.
Three years later we attended a wedding at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and a life together was begun in the Netherlands for the lucky couple. Stan is the youngest of the group, by fifteen years on the rest of us, and was born and raised in Australia with a love for life and all things exciting, which always comes out when we go to his favorite sin city, Las Vegas. Twin sisters by day and gambling ninjas by night, Phyllis and Joan were born in Germany and moved to the UK as children.
We pitched in to help Phyllis move to France, finding she has an obsession for the wild animals of Africa when we saw all of her Serengeti artwork. We made sure to include a few days at the Champs-Elysées so Norman and Joan could play in the World Poker Tournament while the rest of us visited the Arc de Triomphe.
Our friendship burgeoned by sending Christmas cards to each other, and bloomed into taking turns planning several gambling vacations a year. Ten years of vacationing together have proven to be the best of times, playing at casinos all over the world from the renowned and well-known to backwoods, rural establishments owned by Indian tribes in America.
By taking turns in the planning and execution of the vacation destinations, we discovered Stan’s passion for all things poker and the way he stacks his chips from left to right and back again has given us many hours of good-natured teasing. We were quite surprised to find he has a passion for asparagus, which he takes time to educate everyone about. Phyllis has perfected her South African accent and refuses to speak without it while gambling.
We determined that Norman likes to think he is James Bond and always dresses accordingly for good luck when we hit the casino floor, as well as his habit of never traveling without a picture of his children. Carol accommodates Norman’s 007 fantasies when she refuses to be called anything but Honey Ryder as we play, but her love of all things Canadian goes beyond the norm.
The way Joan touches every chip to her chin before she plays it has been a wonderful source of laughter for years, and her cooking skills rival those of the top chefs. Now that we are older, traveling is more difficult and we don’t get to vacation together as much anymore. Instead of taking turns picking casinos, we put our top three favorites in a hat and draw for the two times a year we can come together for fun.