The Rest of September: Elaine's Birthday, Stenciling our Entryway and Kent's Retirement

This year my birthday was on a Saturday, so we had time to go out to dinner. 

We went to the fanciest restaurant in Stafford County and had a delicious steak and crab dinner

. They also gave me a chocolate creme brulee for free since it was my birthday.

After dinner we went to stake conference, and after stake conference our friends the Burkett's had us over. Susan had made me some peanut butter brownies for my birthday. They were tasty!

My Bible Study friends had gotten together to make some pretty crafts for the table for my birthday lunch. Everything was very pretty.

I made my own cake, which was a maple pecan cake with browned butter frosting with toasted pecans on the top. It was REALLY good! I especially like the burned butter frosting.

I was ready for another change in our house since we've been here over TEN YEARS now, so I convinced Kent to work on stenciling our entry way.

It's such a small space I thought it wouldn't take very long, but as with most of my grandiose schemes,

it took much longer than I thought it would. Kent ended up finishing the project while I was visiting my parents in Oregon.

I was very pleased with the results. Thanks for all your hard work, Kent!

A sad event that happened in the middle of the month was the passing of Kent's mom on the 19th. We're glad we were able to see her at the beginning of the month, when Kent had spent quite a bit of time with her. She was 90 and had been in poor health for months, so it wasn't too much of a surprise.

At the end of September was a milestone for Kent--he retired after 36 years of working for the Federal Government. His bosses all had nice things to say about him.

Kent gave a nice farewell speech and had even written a poem.

He gave some special awards to some of his employees.

Some of his former employees came back to attend his retirement ceremony. It's obvious Kent was universally well-liked and had been a good worker and a good boss.

Farewell to ANC

By the Poet Engineer

As I go away and leave you

It’s retirement time for me

I always will remember

Exploring things of ANC

The sparkle of the sunlight

On the dew-soaked grass in spring

The beauty of the autumn days

From the blaze of “flaming” trees

The young daughter and hermother

Sitting by her daddys grave

Father sitting by his son’s headstone

Remembering the sacrifice, he gave.

The pageantry of the honors

For so many funerals every day

The horse drawn caissons and the rifles

The final tributes on display

The many projects that we worked on

As the “Engineering team”

Orange fences mark our progress

Of reconstructing everything

And buildingnew improvements

So the cemetery lasts

Many years into the future

And keep honoring our past.

And of course, the many people

I have worked with through the years

We had our times of laughter

And se whared some times of tears.

It is an Honor working here

On that I know we can agree.

These are some of the many things I’ll keep

In my heart from ANC

Thank you all for your friendship!

And the years we’ve worked together

Auf Weidersehen

Sayonara

And farewell

Until we meet again.