Last May, while we were at a geocaching event, Trish called Ben with some exciting news. She is going to try her best to retire from 25 years at Korum in Puyallup. She has been working most of her life and she knew this was going to be a huge transition. Ever since I've known her, she was not able to take a lot of time off, when she did, she came back to work severely behind because the management would not hire a team of warranty specialists to help her. She did the job of three or more people for years. She missed a lot of family memories as well because she worked some of her weekends away. Memories we won't get back.
Of course, I couldn't help myself and we NEEDED to have a retirement party for her. She was reluctant but she eventually agreed. I asked her to think about what she wanted to do with family to celebrate her on her special day. She tried to downplay it, but I told her that retiring is a huge deal!
We had a little bit of drama right before we were supposed to celebrate it. I was on the calendar first, but she let her co-workers grab the same day. Luckily, they ended up doing something the Friday before so it wouldn't conflict with our day. She wanted to do a family thing at the Olive Garden in Puyallup. I let everyone know and decided to meet up around 2. Yes, we made sure to get there relatively early because the Olive Garden is always so busy!
Ben and I stayed up way too late the night before. We had Josh and Heather come over for dinner. We had BBQ chicken, potato salad and rice. We played Most Likely and marbles. Heather struggled staying up since she gets up at like 4:30 to go to work. We all had fun.
I got up around 9:30, fed the cats and took a shower. Ben stayed in bed, and I had to bother him to make him get up and get ready. He finally got up, shaved and showered. I did my hair and make-up and wore jeans. Since Covid, that is super fancy for me. Ben got dressed and I told Erika that we would be over to pick her up around noonish. Zac was in Vancouver with his brother helping their mom, Nancy, with some stuff. We didn't invite Doug for various reasons.
We picked Erika up and we all went to Fred Meyers to get Trish a gift and a card, yes, we waited until the last minute. Erika ended up getting a Starbucks and had a hard time with the barista. Then we had to wait for Erika who was getting impatient with the barista. She eventually came out; we drove around and picked her up. She was getting closer to her due date and had a hard time waddling around. We got onto I-5 north and the freeway was super busy. We got stuck in Dupont/JBLM traffic for a while. The weather was really poor, and it rained a lot.
We got into Puyallup around 1:30, found a parking spot and Ben went inside to make sure we had a table. Erika and I got organized and went inside. Mom, Dad and Grandma arrived about the same time we did. We all waited in the lobby until our table was ready. Ed showed up shortly after we did, and Trish and Amy were late. It actually was beneficial that they were a little bit late because then I was able to decorate the table with a few retirement decorations.
They arrived just after 2 p.m. Our waiter got our drink orders and then the food orders. We spent the time waiting to talk about random things. Trish told us about her last day of work and how she was celebrated the day before. We ate a lot of breadsticks and salad and then got our food. I got the chicken alfredo, and it was tasty. I am glad I remembered our gift card we've been sitting on for over 5+ years. It came in super handy. We paid for Trish's dinner, and she opened some gifts, cards and received some flowers. She appreciated all of us and thanked us for coming.
Mom, Dad, Erika and Grandma went home, and Ben and I went over to his mom's house to visit for a bit. We hit some poor traffic on Hwy 410 going up the hill into Bonney Lake. When we finally got there, we chatted with Trish about her last day more in depth, talked about the wedding and everything in between when it came up. We got talked into playing two rounds of dice...I lost. We chatted with Amy about some of her issues, more about the wedding stuff and asked Trish about Ben's grandparents' personal items. She was able to find a couple things for me. I stuffed them into a bag and took it out to the car after we said our goodbyes.
We headed home. The traffic was light, so we were able to get home quickly. Ben wanted a Blizzard, so we stopped at the one near our house. I got an Oreo, and he got a peanut butter cookie party. We got home, changed into comfy clothes, Ben played his games, and I worked on my wedding vows. We went to bed after 1 a.m.
May the 4th be with you!
Next Adventure: Yes, to a Dress, Errands and Some Northern Lights!
