Retirement

You hear this word when you are younger and you wonder if this is really if it will ever come to that point in your life. In the military it comes soon than most but it still seems to be off in the distance. I was hoping to continue on as long as we could in the military. I love the life and the change and ideal of service to country.

When we moved to Colorado Eric was going to retire. He was told it was almost impossible to promote and it could never happen. When he received his promotion we quickly changed our mind and decided to stay in and try for Chief. That meant going back to the real world of the air force and for us it meant Idaho. (Even though our hopes where for a more exotic place.) That all change two weeks after arriving here. Eric no longer felt the same about continuing his career. We had already moved so he had two years to figure out what he was going to do with his life.

Fast forward to retirement day. I am sad because so much is changing. My girls aren't going to grow up as military children. Its a hard life, but also an honorable one. Eric wasn't going to do some big ceremony. He wasn't going to do anything until one of his cadets (Clark Follansbee) offered to fly out for his retirement. What an honor and it was to have him come and share the special day with our family. Our girls were so excited to see him. He is like a big brother. The ceremony was simple and sweet. With some of Eric's co-workers and friends from the base.

The shocking part of it all is when Eric decided what he wanted to do when he grew up and got out of the air force. He decided he wanted to be a realtor and move back to Colorado Springs. What a crazy world this is. For him it is a grand adventure with endless potential. For me it is a crazy to think of how different our life is going to be. So for our family it is another adventure and we will see where the Lord is going to take us.

 

Seminary Graduation

Sophia Walker, Willow Freer, Mady McMurry, Rachelle Schmidt, Mary Soangelo, Jessie, Lily Wakefield

My senior boys...Taylor Ogaard, Garrett McKenzie, Nathan Gibbons, Kamden Peterson, David Parrett, Joey Vogel, and Parker Noyce.

Josh Baldrige and Mady

Weekend with Family & Friends

To make a crazy day a little crazy we decided to have our neighbor and friend Taylor Ogaard come over to our house to open his mission call. I knew I would have plenty of food so why not share it with a world. We had a house for of teenagers for about 30 minutes. With all of the excitement we found out he wold go Little Rock, Arkansas. He will be speaking Spanish. He is excited and so are we. After it was all done we had a group photo of all the young men in our stake, plus one that used to live here pose in front of the the map on the wall.

The rest of the weekend we were able to spend with my family that came up for the weekend for the special occasion. It was great to have time with our cousins. The morning was spent playing games together. I had to document that my niece is taller than me. We also missed out on some very important pictures with the savannah and her family.

After church was over we decided we would take and adventure to the park with the family. What a great way to spend the Sunday afternoon with family. Days like these we sure wish we could live closer together to spend more time with our family. I am grateful for family that makes the sacrifice to make a special day so important for such a special little girl.