Happy retirement dad!! Saturday, my three wonderful sisters an I threw a surprise retirement party for our dad. It was awesome. We have never done any surprise party for my dad, so we thought that this was a good time to do it. The party was held at my house in the backyard, so to get him to come over to my house all nice and dressed up we told him that we were going to take him out for dinner to the Chefs Table Restaurant for his retirement. As soon as he and my mom pulled up Matt and I met him outside and asked if he would come look at a tree in our backyard that was looking a little sad, As soon as we said that, he asked what was going on, he had a hunch something other than dinner was about to happen. We took him around back and what do you know....... his Sister, her husband, their son and his wife and baby, had come from California for the party, also a cousins son from France came. Even though he knew something was going on I think that seeing them was a big surprise. It was fun to see the reaction on his face. Then the rest of the night we had people from my moms family, from their neighborhood, people from my dads work, and old friends show up. We had dinner for all of the visitors, and if you can believe it we made most of the food. We probably fed around 150 people that night, and we only had to run to the store once, because we ran out of meat. Here was the menu:
Grilled Chicken skewers
Grilled Flank Steak
Couscous
Tomato Salad
Cabbage Salad
Pretzel Jell-O Salad
Crackers and Cheese (and Amber's yummy Cheese Ball)
Chips & Spinach Artichoke Dip (Costco)
Fruit and Veggie Trays
Bread and Yummy Homemade Jam
and so many different yummy cookies and cupcakes
It was really an awesome night. Our Dad has worked so hard all these years for us. We always had good food to eat at home, clothes on our backs, and family memories from all of our fun vacations that we went on together. Thanks Dad for taking such good care of us, now it is your time to party. We love you!!!!