She's Outa There.... Happy Retirement Mom!

I haven't been blogging for the past couple of days because I've been in Portland celebrating my mom's retirement. After 30+ years at the same company, she retired on Friday.

Mom is leaving for her final day of work.

The theme of her retirement luncheon was boa's and tiara's. Mom loves to dress up (actually it runs in the family... we all do). All her co-workers dressed up in tiara's, crowns and feather boa's. They all had their pictures taken in their party attire and created a wonderful scrapbook for mom. She will cherish it forever and still can't look at it without getting weepy.

Suzi and I on the way to the party with our tiara's on.

Myself, Suzi, Mom and Austin in our party attire (dad and Travis also donned the boa's but somehow I don't have copies of those photos... geee I wonder why!)

Mom's closest friends looking fabulous in their get-ups.

The menu for the luncheon was mom's choice. She picked a martini baked potato bar. The large martini glasses were filled with dozens of toppings for our baked potato's. Yummy Yummy Yummy.

Here are a few of the toppings in the martini glasses.

After the luncheon the formal company retirement party started. There were lots and lots of speeches about my mom and what a wonderful friend, co-worker and boss she is. I learned lots of interesting things about my mom... like she started working part-time because she wanted to buy wallpaper for her living room (she never did buy it). She also never thought she'd work there for very long (after all, wallpaper didn't cost that much) so she wasn't bashful about what she said or did. She figured if they fired her- so what. It was that attitude that got her into upper management quickly. She was a great boss because she was straight forward and told people the truth. She also did fun things with her staff- like holding costume contests, being their slave for a day, etc. I already knew my mom was the BEST... but all the stories I heard about her really reinforced my feelings.

Suzi and I making our speech and presentation about mom (horrible picture of me... but I was crying). During the speech I finally admitted that as a little girl I was the one who stole all the candy off their desks and took the change out of their desk drawers!

Mom accepting her award, final paycheck, first retirement paycheck, etc.

Then we were off to eat cake, visit with family, friends and attend even more parties. All in all it was a great day and one we'll all cherish forever.

Mom is enjoying retirement... yesterday she slept in to 8:00... that's quite the feat for a lady who usually is up at 5:00. Unfortunately, there's no rest in site for her. She now gets to tackle the task of cleaning out 60 years worth of stuff (dare I say...CRAP) out of the house. Hopefully she'll clean quickly so they can sell the house and get moved to Boise before too long.