My Dad's Retirement Card

Good morning! We spent the weekend at my parent's house, helping my Dad celebrate his retirement. When I sat down to make his card the other day I couldn't find an image that I really liked for this occasion. I knew I wanted something that represented at least one of the activities that I know he will be devoting a lot of time to during his retirement. I went to Mo Manning's store and found the perfect image. The image is called Big Guy's Garden and the face that he is gathering tomatoes made this the perfect choice for his retirement card. My Dad is a passionate gardener and takes special pride in his tomatoes. Some of the things in his garden, including some of his tomatoes, are from seeds that have been passed down for many generations in his family. After coloring the image with Copics, I remembered I had this fun paper from Cosmo Cricket. I kept the embellishments simple as I do with most masculine cards and just added some twine and some little silver studs at the bottom. The challenge on Mo's challenge blog is "Anything Goes", so I am entering this in the challenge over there.

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I decided to include some pictures from his reception we did at their church yesterday.

This is the oh so happy retiree.

This is my Mom and Dad.

This is my family; my parents, my sister, her husband their son Silas, my brother and his son Cole and daughter Zoie, and me and Kip. Silas has new sunglasses.

This sweet lady is someone I have known my entire life, she was also taught me and my sister in first grade. She is a beautiful soul, inside and out.

This is one of my youngest cousins and her husband and new baby Addison.

 This is a good friend of my Dad's. If you are even in Cleveland, TN you must have breakfast at the Rebel. The best sausage and gravy anywhere. The restaurant has been in their family for many year and is where my parents went on some of their first dates. This weekend when we drove in, we drove straight to the Rebel as we often do and stop there before we see anyone in my family. They have other delicious food too, but we always go for breakfast.

This is my Mom and my Granddad Bill.

Thanks for looking at my photos and really, if you are ever near Cleveland stop and visit the Rebel!!