Every time I look at my parents, I always admire the way that they have hung in together being married for so long. This year they were celebrating their thirty seventh anniversary and we decided to have a small get together at their favorite restaurant.  It was my turn to pick out the gift and I know mom loves crystal. Dad never cares what we get them as long as a good meal comes with it. He always said that mom got him through a good cooked meal and the restaurant should serve him one if they are going out to celebrate. I had seen this company before when they offered several engraved items and awards for all occasions and when I check out their webpage I was excited to see the crystal awards.

Since we were celebrating their thirty seven years of being together, to me that deserved an award. We really did not know how many more they would have together but were grateful both were in good health.  I happened to have seen a beautiful crystal bowl award that was absolutely beautiful. Knowing that my parents had a great curio cabinet and space for such an item I knew the gift would be perfect. The company would print anything we wanted on it and the customer service they offered was outstanding. They were offering suggestions and some saying that they had provided to previous customers. I knew I still had a few days so I told them I would call back with the words. Now, I had to come up with the perfect words for the bowl.

I called around to the family to see if they wanted to offer some suggestions and really did not get anything useful. My brothers had smart remarks and my sister told me to come up with something original. She said I was good at that and there I sat with this crystal bowl picture in front of me trying to figure out the romantic words for my parents and their anniversary. Then it came to me, they were married in January and my brother was born that first year of their marriage.  As I was talking to the company, I had decided to have a small flower, my mother's favorite engraved into the bowl, from there a vine would be started and my brother's name and birth date would be added and continuing around the bowl one by one the other three would be added as well connecting the vine to the front of the bowl.

The results were beautiful and at the restaurant when we presented it to my parents they both loved it. Inside the bowl there were four pairs of booties, two blue and two pink.  Each pair had our names sewn in, the bowl included a copy of their marriage license and at the time it only cost $2 to get married which a $2 bill was attached as a keepsake.