Dad's retirement

I went to Wollongong on the weekend for Dad's retirement party. His last day was actually today. Happy retirement Dad! Dad has been working for Water Resources Commission for 44½ years! Since he was 17. The department has actually had about ten name changes in that time, but WRC is the one that always comes to my mind cos that's what it was called in my teenage years. Dad supported our family of six by himself. Dad never complained about work. He was proud of his work, and he knew he was making a difference. He travelled around the state a lot, from his first year as a cadet all the way thru to just a few weeks ago! Dad was a Civil Engineer and designed and supervised the building of dams and was involved in soil and water conservation (not really sure how to describe what he did!). He helped farmers. Greenies loved him. Mum has really enjoyed his job too. She travelled around with him on a lot of trips. And Dad's job moved us from Sydney to Grafton. That was a huge deal. Mum only told me recently that they only had a few weeks notice of the move. It was a really difficult decision for her to make, leaving behind her twin sister who she was incredibly close to. But growing up in the country was such a fantastic thing for our family. Grafton was the best place to grow up, and even tho none of us live there anymore, we still hold it close to our hearts and in some ways still think of it as home.

So, on to the Retirement Party. I almost didn't go and boy was I SO happy that I was able to go. It was really, really special. There were people there who did their cadetship with Dad 44 years ago. And those families are still close family friends. People travelled all the way from Grafton for the party (about 9 hours away) - and my auntie and uncle (mum's twin and DH) invited themselves too, cos they wanted to catch up with the old gang!. There were plenty of beautiful speeches. It was sooo great and I was really proud of him. Here are a few pics...Finally, I will leave you with this layout I did for Scrap The Lot (LSS). This is my grandma Grace, Mum's mum. I love the movie star photo of Grandma on the left. Thanks for stopping by my lil ole blog! :)