Sunflower Stories: After 21 Years of Military Civil Service...

my mom is officially a retiree! We drove up to attend her retirement ceremony last Wednesday and it was quite an event! The military base she works at has a monthly ceremony for those that retire that month. They acknowledged 16 people this month, my mom was the only non-enlisted person. The boys were in awe of the event, it's so funny to see how excited Aidan gets when he sees "Army guys." Being an Army brat myself, I was just so used to seeing a field of uniforms.

My sons and my sister's sons.

They had real cannons there that fired at the beginning and end of the ceremony (as the division flags were presented and as they left.) Sean is not a fan of loud noises so he did a lot of clinging on to me, oh and it was around 97 degrees outside. melting!

My sister, Tanya, Sean, Nana and Papa before the ceremony started.

Snuggling with Nana.

I didn't take photos during the actual award part, as they had all of us go up with mom to receive her certificates, pins, and a folded American flag. Afterwards, I took Ella and Aidan into the newly built 1st Infantry Division Headquarters building to cool off. Aidan asked a soldier working the front desk if we could walk up the stairwell to see the uniform displays they had set up. The guy assigned a soldier to give us a tour! Very cool! It is such a huge and sophisticated building- far different from the one my dad worked in when I was a child.

Then we walked around the grounds to see the memorials and artifacts they had outside.