New Chapter - Dad's Retirement Work Party

After 32 Years of dedicated service to the State of Utah..my dad is retiring! On Monday my dad had his work retirement party. When my dad decided to retire and he let his right hand man know about it (Bob), Bob decided to retire too so they had their party together :). Bob always said that when my dad leaves, he is leaving.
It was a great day for my dad. I never realized how many people love and support him at his work. My dads secretary counted about 400 people came to his sweet tribute.
My dads secretaries did an amazing job at the decorating, program, lunch, etc. They really outdid themselves. They wanted to keep my dad and his friend Bob separated at the party so they did BYU & UTAH colors since Bob LOVES U of U, and my dad LOVES BYU. It was a cute idea!




I just love Debo, she is my dads amazing secretary and has worked along side my dad for a lonnnng time. Best part is, she is best friends with my mom too.

Preparing to go downstairs for his Party!
My dads employees made this, it sits in his office..hilarious


Us kids sitting in the front row waiting for it to start.

They gave him a very nice plaque, it was the two things in life he loves..pic of his family and pic of his cabin, actually 3 pics of his cabin haha

He did a great speech, it was sweet how he made all of us kids stand up and his parents, and his brothers and sisters. Afterwards I had a lady come up to me and say, "I have never seen your dad like that talking about his family and introducing each of you, I always just see his working life". I really thought about what she said. We his family, always see his family life, not his work life.





My dads siblings minus Gyle, he lives in Colorado.



My beautiful mom and grandma. Now you know where I get my looks from




Monday is his last day..it will be bitter sweet.


Onto the next chapter in life..everyone thinks he should be a Yellowstone snowmobile Guide..his dream job.
This week my dad sent out a sweet email to all his kids and daughter/son in-laws. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it on my blog, but I want to remember it always and plus this is my journal of life..
I wanted to drop you all a note to tell you each how much I appreciated you coming to my retirement party yesterday. I was extremely happy and proud to introduce each of you as my family. It was a great day for not just me but for both your mother and I.

In work life, there are two types of people. Those who live to work and those who work to live. I hope each of you know that I work so I can live, so that I can enjoy my time that I spend with each one of you. I truly believe that we all need to appreciate every moment we spend outside of our work lives and understand just why we need to have employment. Work does not make us complete, it just gives us the ability to complete our lives.

Thank you so much for attending. OK, now I'll crawl off my soapbox.

Now, the next question is: do I live to be retired or be retired to live?

Love you Pops!!