They're gone. Oh my. Our last day, yesterday, was pretty normal. However, on the way home from our "goodbye" dinner, kids' emotions flared and the evening errupted. I basically went to bed in tears. I had hoped there would be lots of love expressed and hopes for the future. It was hard and we weren't able to give Alina her pictures and translated letter of how glad we were she came and stayed with us, etc. Jessi and Alina stayed up playing Disney Princess Uno until 11:00 pm - I knew it would be hard to get up...

I folded her pink letter and placed it in her little photo album. I hope she reads it. We were at the airport by 6:00 am but waited until about 8:00 am just to get the kids checked in -- something about a need to have a visa for their luggage in Germany. We thought Vern was going to explode at one point but things worked out and the mad goodbye dash commenced. Hugs, tears, kisses. We were positioned so close to where they walked through security and Paul had the camera ready, however, Alina, ducked under the ropes and didn't look at us (maybe she didn't see us standing there but all of the others went around and we said goodbye and thank you to them) -- we could have hugged one more time (Jessi didn't really get to hug her and here was her chance. Jessi feels so sad...). We waited for them to go up a far distant escalator. Vern had them wave as they went up and when we saw her we waved and she was waving and blew a kiss!

It's so quiet at home...