Retirement

Dave

Our department: L to R: Madalyn, Karen, LaVonne, Dave, yours truly, Alex, Paul

LaVonne gave a great speech, recognizing Dave.

LaVonne, offering punch refills

Today Dave, a man whom I have worked with the past eight years, retired. I have enjoyed him and his wife and daughters very much. It was his wife who once had me upgraded to first class on my flight to Seattle. She's a flight attendant, and made the trip so much fun for me. You can read about it here and here.

I had a lot of fun planning the retirement party which was held in our office this morning. On a road trip last Saturday, an inspiration hit me to use the theme of Home Depot for food and decorations. Dave has a lot of home projects he plans to do now that he'll have the time. I bought Home Depot lawn bags and cut them up to use as our table cloth. I cut the top off a Home Depot spray bottle and used it as a vase. One of their 5 gallon paint pails became our punch bowl. A tool box tray held the mixed nuts; a carpenter apron held the forks. I ordered a cake from Lund's bakery - asking the pastry chef to create plaid icing, using chocolate brown and Home Depot orange for the color palette. She did an amazing job! How can you go wrong with a Lund's cake?

I'm sure going to miss Dave, but I'll see him now and then. He'll stop by, or I'll do something with him and his wife.