Dad's retirement party

For those of you who are not related to me, this may be a very long boring post. So you can skip to the next one....for those of you who might be more interested, we threw a surprise retirement party for my dad. He has been teaching at Union High School for 35 years and is retiring next week. He has taught so many students and we wanted to show him how appreciated he is. We got a pretty good turn out. We would have loved more, but oh well. I did a book of family and students who wrote tributesto him. Now that he knows about it, if you did not write one and would like to, please e-mail me at sharenew@hotmail.com. My goal is to keep getting more people to write a thought, memory or thanks to him to add to his book. Please take a few minutes to write a tribute if you have not. Okay, here we go... The first few pictures are the set up.

We had tacos, taquitos and nachos as well as Spanish rice for the food.
We also had bowls of yummy fruit and some cookies for dessert.

We had a few tables set up to eat on.

Here is the incredible cake that Shell did. There is a little Tabasco sauce in the top left hand corner, a little trinket they got in Mexico on the bottom left corner, a drivers ed car on the right and a chess board in the middle. She also did the colors like the Mexican flag and had cute cougar paw prints on the side. She worked so hard and it looked incredible!! Great job Shell.

These next few pictures are a display table for him.

Here are my mom and dad right after he walked in and was surprised. My mom had even put a picture and article in the Standard (The newspaper in the Uintah Basin). She cut it out as soon as they got it, and so he still didn't know. It was a great surprise party!

My sister Shimayne was in charge of the decorations and I knew as soon as I saw everything she brought why I put her in charge. She did an INCREDIBLE job. They were absolutely perfect.

These are all of the classes that my dad has taught throughout the years. My mom had also done many posters of him doing various things. They were a big hit because many students got to see themselves in the different clubs he was over.

Spanish club....

Here are pictures of him throughout the years and then pictures of our family. My favorite was from January 2008 where there were 6 grandchildren to November 2008 where there were 10 grandchildren.

Chess club. My dad taught all of us to play chess. We love it.

Here are our good friends and my parent's neighbors, the Boggios.

The Weiss's, although that is not any of their last names now.

Shell and Ariah.

My dad, Brielle and Ariah.

Mom, Dad and the Davis's who used to be in our ward and are good friends of our family.

Mike in his wicked awesome sombrero.

The Todds. They were our next door neighbors for many years. We were very sad when they moved away. We love them very much!!

Here are our cute cousins: Aunt Meri, Amy and Susie.

Here is Brielle. She did fairly well for the whole ordeal.

Here again is Shell and her amazing cake.

Here is my dad and our good friend Charles (Chuck) Embleton. He was Donovan's best friend growing up and just part of the family. We love him. He was there at the beginning and stayed until the end and helped clean up. He is a good friend. He goes over and plays chess with my dad quite often. My dad loves that.

Overall the whole thing was a success. My whole family worked so hard, especially my mom, and I think the whole thing was a success and we all had a good time. We love you dad. Thanks for all of your hard work in teaching us not only in the classroom but also at home!!