Monday, January 14, 2008

Christmas 2007 is Official Over

This weekend my family celebrated our Christmas together in Laughlin Nevada. If you are familiar with Las Vegas and Laundry mats then you can guess what Laughlin is like. It’s a very tiny, very simple casino town. It is right on the Colorado River across from Arizona and only 4 short hours from my home. My mother and sister from New Mexico are 8 hours away but seemed like a good place to meet up and hang out for the weekend.

And it was. We had a blast! When we got in Friday night we met up with my sisters and started the partying. My mom had spent the day gambling so she stayed in the room with the kids and my wife and I with my sisters hit the town. Now Laughlin is not a busiest city this time of year and especially at the hour we were out. After 10 at night the traffic in the town drops off considerably. Most of the tourists are elderly folk so the mornings are the busiest times which left the night wide open for our clan.

We hit a Casino called The Pioneer. This is my favorite place to gamble period. Even as compared to the casinos in Vegas, the Pioneer in Laughlin always has my vote. It is not because they have the best drinks, or the best restaurants. It isn’t due to their fancy decorations or the view of the river. The one reason I love the Pioneer is the people. Every dealer, pit boss, stick man, waitress, and even the security guards are all nice. They just have this laid back and friendly attitude which I find addicting. I love feeling welcomed and I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t.

One thing you usually lose at big casinos is the friendly dealers. Dealers that let you know if you are making a lousy bet and that are willing to teach you a little table lingo so you sound as cool as the dude who just dropped 2 C-notes on the table to buy in. I love that about the Pioneer.

We played roulette for hours and had a blast. I was doing really well and a few times I even called out the numbers before they hit! The dealer was really impressed and I told her, “Sometimes I am magic!” That was the line I used each time I won anything all weekend.

Now I didn’t win enough to afford the CGMS I want to get but maybe we need to plan an OC trip to Laughlin. Then all of us can win money to pay for all the Diabetes junk we have to buy! That would be cool. Saturday morning we did our Christmas gift exchange up in my mom’s hotel room. The kids had a blast opening gifts as usual. I think they forgot about Christmas so this was a cool extension of the Christmasy goodness all kids love.

My gift was from my sister this year and she decided to have a little fun. I was hoping to get drunk enough to hit the casino floor in this thing but I never got that crazy.

Hey, maybe I can deliver some Cheesy Tots to Scott!

Anyhow, we had a great time and are probably going to make this an after Christmas tradition for years to come.

8 comments:

Shannon said...

I HATE the burger King. He's so smarmy.

I'm glad you had fun with that last x-mas celebration.

Kerri. said...

Your grin is completely adorable. I love the mask! If you come to the East Coast, you must wear it. Chris will wear one, too. You can duel. ;)

Anonymous said...

HA! on the mask.

G uses the Burger King as one of his userpics on his LiveJournal. :)

Anonymous said...

i'm with shannon. smarmy king!

i was hoping to hear all about the "craps"! hahahaha! i said "craps"!

George said...

Shannon - I hate the BK King. HE scares me which is why my sister bought the mask for me!

Kerri - He will win. See Shannons note above! LOL

talesofmy30s - I am glad I am not the only one rocking the King mask.

landileigh - I am truly magic. The dealer was shocked because I threw a dollar on 11 once and won and then I said, "I am feeling snake eyes" and dropped a dollar on that and won! I WAS MAGIC!!!! Craps is fun. LOL I said craps!

Scott K. Johnson said...

The KING!!!!!!!!

I don't know whether I would hug the guy for the glorious creation of artery clogging goodness called cheesy tots...

or punch him right in the lips for creating such artificial goodness that I cannot resist them.

Heavy on the ketchup. Go big or go home. Uh, unless you're in weight watchers, then it's cool to "go little". :-) Does ketchup have a "point value"? LOL!!

I had to look up the word "smarmy"...

Dude - I can't wait until you can teach me the game of craps (heehee, I said CRAPS).

Minnesota Nice said...

George - the first thing I noticed on the pic was how thin your face looked!

Donna said...

The BK King scares me, too. Kind of like clowns. You can't tell what he's really thinking....