Birthdays and Southwest

Happy 13th birthday Allison! I love you so much it makes my stomach hurt! ; )

We sent Allison flowers with balloons and teddy bears to school today for her birthday. She said they were awesome. When she called I told her I could not wait to see her in a week and with a hint of breathlessness she said "I can't wait to live there"! I am so glad she is so in to this because at 13 I know it is hard. She is a super resilient kid ... always has been.

Jennifer told Allison we would have another more formal birthday party when we get to Grandma's and Matthew asked Jennifer if that was because she did not know how to organize one. ;) I am usually the one that does it so I can see why he thinks that! I guess the next one I will have to let Jennifer take the lead so she can get up to speed.

Louis and I are excited about having regular events, eg. Friday pizza nights, Sunday movie afternoons, Sat morning pancake breakfasts ... etc. I think kids thrive on traditions like that.

8 more sleeps to the kiddo invasion ...

I cannot believe how close I am to my last day at Southwest. Three and a half days or 28 working hours and I will be a Southwest Retiree. I am so thankful to be a Retiree because I will always have that connection. Southwest will always be a part of my family. It has been different the last couple of weeks ... for so many months it seemed I would never get to this week and now it is not as exciting as I thought it would be. Very bittersweet! I have absolutely no regrets about my decision but I did not expect to feel this melancholy. I believe it is the same feeling someone would get if they were told they only had a few months to live. All of a sudden everything and everyone becomes more important. It is as if all of the negative feelings are gone and it is replaced by positive. So this is becoming more difficult than I thought.

But it does not change the fact that I am so excited about the future. It is so weird ... there is a very defined line in the sand at 10:30am Friday morning (that is the end of my last shift at SWA). The same intensity of sadness I will have at 10:25am will be replaced by an equally intense feeling of happiness at 10:35am.