LUCKY SEVEN!

Well, seventy years passed way faster than I could possibly have anticipated!  Even during the past several months while I was tracking my 70th birthday as a benchmark toward my retirement from United, December 2, 2015, still seemed like some far away date.

Now it has come and gone--but not without a proper acknowledgement.  That acknowledgement came from my family who were ALL at Sweetbriar celebrating Thanksgiving together--the first time in the 15 years since I began with United.  I have purposely bid to work on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years because my kids were all grown and gone.  Others at work with children needed to be with their kids.  On the few years I didn't have an assignment to fly, there were some occasions the family got together during  Thanksgiving week, a couple of years some of the family were together, some years Louis went with me on my United assignment, a couple of times I went to spend Thanksgiving with one of my children, and some years I have been in a hotel room alone eating a McDonald's hamburger for my Thanksgiving dinner.  But what a  celebration Thanksgiving 2015 was!

Apparently, the birthday part had been planned and spearheaded by Brittany ever since she rallied the family several months ago that 2015 would be a Nichols Family Thanksgiving.  Plus United cooperated and gave me my FIRST choice in the yearly vacation bid. What luck!

Slated for the day after Thanksgiving, the birthday party was in the style of a true Nichols Family Home Evening--  not just a couple of hours full of activities but from five pm into the night, the next day, and on into a second evening of fun.  No, it wasn't exactly on my birthday.  It was a few days before, but no matter.  And I finally "got it"--the Nichols Family Thanksgiving was the reason behind the REAL reason.

During Thanksgiving week in addition to time for visiting and cooking the dinner together, several went shopping or stopped in to see friends from the past.  Best of all Judy's brother Edwin had shipped his professional photography equipment to Colorado so he could take pictures of the family.  We hadn't had a family picture for about 10 years, so that was a big plus for being together.

I had told everyone we were going to do a game night on Friday while we ate the abundant desserts like we used to do.  But following Thanksgiving dinner, Brittany announced that we really weren't going to do that.  Instead we were going to have a "surprise" birthday party for me--but they let me in on the surprise since, truthfully, I don't always do well with surprises.

Judy prepared home made pizza dough and all the fixings so everyone could make their own personal pizza.  Brittany and Harold made doughnuts from my mother's recipe which I always requested for my birthday instead of a cake.  There were presents!  And there was a special edition of Trivia Pursuit--Momma G Edition--with 200 questions Brittany put together from a marathon rereading of the 10 years worth of Nichols Family News.  Not even I knew all the answers! 

I'm not sure what my 71st birthday will bring.  Hopefully it will also be a celebration for my retirement from United.  But the way things look now with continuing delays in forging a new contract and no announcement of a second buyout, retirement in 2016 doesn't look like the given it did even a year ago.  I hope I am wrong.

No matter.  It will be my 70th birthday celebration that will remain one of the high points of my seven decades.  No wonder I call it "Lucky Seven"!

THANK YOU, NICHOLS FAMILY!