50 Years!

Mom and dad were married on Dec 18th, 1971.  This past Saturday they celebrated 50 years of marriage. That is a big deal.  Us siblings have been going back and forth on what to do to celebrate their anniversary.  It's tricky with Dante still at home to plan anything, so we decided to plan a family get together this summer around the 4th of July.  Luckily, we were able to come up with that date fairly easily.  Everyone will come here and we will have activities here in Utah. We also decided to do a family dinner for those that live here on Sunday.  Paul and Tiff were so kind to host.  They made the best food and had everything set up for the perfect night.  We were excited that EJ and Ofa were in town.  I love visiting with them.

We wanted mom and dad to be the guests of honor and not worry about anything.  Paul cooked their favorite foods; steak and salmon and they were delicious.  They had a little sparkling cider for each of us, the kids loved that, actually we all loved that!

They had the garage nice and warm for the kids to eat out there.

After we all visited for a while and ate we called Matt and Lori and Gary and Julie.

We all chipped in and got them this cute picture.

Dad read it  out loud for us.

They talked about how much they love their family and how much joy we have all brought them.

I'm so grateful that I grew up with parents that loved each other and always made their relationship a priority.  I always felt so loved and safe in my house and I'm so grateful for that.  I also knew what I wanted in a marriage and I knew how a man should treat his wife from watching my dad.  My mom taught me how to love and appreciate your husband and how to put your family first.  They showed us that a successful, happy partnership requires two people who love each other and are willing to sacrifice for each other and for their children.  I'm so grateful for my parents.

Jonah made them this sign in welding.  It says, "The Hams est.1971."  I know it was hard work for him especially with the cursive lettering.  I told Jonah I would pay the fees for the material and he said he wanted to because he wanted it to be from him.  He is such a sweet boy.

After that dad told us about his experience in welding.  We all got a laugh out of that!  Apparently, he welded his Christmas tree stand to the table and his teacher was so mad and told him that he would give him a C if he promised to never take a shop class again.

They brought their wedding album.  Rockwell and Paige held the phones up so Gary's and Matt's family could see the pictures.  We all loved looking through their photo album.

Hallee wrote them a sweet note and made them matching bracelets. 

We all had fun celebrating mom and dad.  What a great legacy they have built.