today has been rough. we spent last night at a motel near the atlanta airport and woke bright and early at 4 a.m. to pack up and get ryan, ori and harry over to the airport. it was hard. i’ve never been particularly close to ryan, although i hope we will become closer now, and i really didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was. i’m tearing up again just picturing them going through security and walking out of sight. it’s tough knowing we won’t see them again until may.

last night was such a nice family time. ori’s parents stayed at the motel too, so when they arrived with ryan and ori (my parents, randy and i had gone down earlier with harry, and joe drove down after work), we went out to dinner and had such a nice time together. when we were trying to decide where to go ryan said he wanted to go to an asian restaurant, which i thought was hilarious since they are moving to taiwan. at least he likes the food!

joe’s mom told us about the flight stats web site, on which you can enter a flight number and track the flight. it’s pretty neat because you can track it in real time and see where it is. my dad and i had it up on our computers this morning, and it’s bittersweet. it’s a neat thing to be able to do, but seeing how far they’re getting from home makes me sad.

we had a few interesting experiences at the airport. the first was our shuttle driver. he drove the nine of us and another man, who sat in the front, and pulled up first to the delta ticket counter, which is the airline the other man flew on. he got out, and the driver came, opened the side door and started unloading ryan and ori’s bags. we told him they were flying united, and he lost it. he shouted, “that…IDIOT….he acted like you all were together and that he was your leader. what an IDIOT.” what he had done to make the driver think we were all together was to ask if he could turn the air on in the back after ori’s parents had asked several times without receiving a response.

then, after we checked them in, we found a place to sit down so ori could have something to eat. another woman was there sleeping in a chair, and we sat down next to her, leaving her plenty of space. she threw her jacket off her, jumped up, sighed very loudly and pushed her chair away saying, “these PEOPLE are taking my space.”

of course, i had to respond by mentioning to joe that it was nice that there was so much room for everyone to sit and relax. she got mad, got up and stalked away, turning to glare at us several times.

when she returned, she pushed her chair over until she hit joe with it and plopped down. joe said, “you don’t have to act like a 12-year-old. there’s room for everyone.” then he gave her a nice smile and said, “have a nice flight.”

that was the talk of the morning for us. when we left, we passed by her sitting in a different seat. my dad dared joe to go sit next to her, pretend like he didn’t know her and say, “hi, there. what is that you’re reading?” that would have been awesome.

well, ryan and ori are scheduled to leave san fran in just more than two hours. hopefully right now they’re spending sometime with our grandma, great-uncle and a few other relatives who met them at the airport. i’m sad that they’re gone, but i’m excited for them. i know this will be a fabulous adventure and experience for them.