We left for the airport today to pick up the Irish teens. As soon as we arrived at the airport all of the American teens totally blocked the entire hall in the airport. We had to remind them that the plane would not land for another 20 minutes and they needed to not congest the isle.
One of the other moms had her ipad and checked on the status of the flight in real time. She saw as they crossed into Kansas and then updated the kids every 2 minutes or so on their progress. So, we saw exactly when the plane landed.
As passengers started walking by, the excitement elevated. I heard one mom say that she heard someone talk about coming in from Chicago - the same flight that the Irish teens were on. Vicki - one of the people in charge of host family selection and one of the main players that we've been involved with thus far, warned everyone that the Irish counselor would keep the kids on the plane for a bit.
So, I was just standing and chatting with another mom when I heard the American girls start to squeal. I looked and saw a bunch of kids with red polos walking towards us. They had finally arrived!
The American teens had made signs with their Irish teens names on them so they would know immediately which teen they'd been paired with. I saw David and saw him see Gage, but then I lost them in the crowd of kids. (There was an Ulster group from McPherson there as well). David told us that he "wasn't tired in the least". Even though he'd had five hours of sleep in the last 24 hours or so.
After meeting and greeting several kids and meeting the Irish counselors, we were allowed to head home with our new family member.
I had emailed with David's mom earlier in the day and she'd told me that when David had left that morning it was 64 degrees. Well, when he arrived in Kansas it was 107 degrees. He said he could immediately feel the heat hit him when we stepped out of the airport.
David had said that he liked Italian food, so we decided to treat him to a meal at Olive Garden. We arrived to very full parking lot - I guess it was so hot that no one wanted to cook! The boys went to check in and I found a parking lot. We were told it would be 30 -40 minutes before we could be seated and were given one of those vibrating, light up pagers like you get in restaurants. The Irish teens had never seen the pagers - they said that in restaurants there they simply call your name. We explained that they do that here sometimes as well, but that being as busy as they were, we got pagers. We let David hold on to the pager - I know, what a thrill, right? :)
Anyway - I don't know how long we waited, but it was a while. We saw about 4 other Ulster members, one of whom was from Hutch, so we chatted with them while we waited.
David ordered spaghetti with meat sauce and seemed to like it fairly well - he finished his plate!
On the drive home, David commented several times how flat Kansas was. We explained that we live in the plains of Kansas and it is very flat here. I even made a Little House on the Prairie reference and he had heard of the books.
At one point David asked me if we had many "shape". I said: "Shapes? No idea what you're talking about". He said: "Shape - you know like on a farm?". I figured it out: "Oh - SHEEP...yes, we have sheep. But, mostly cows.". He said there are sheep everywhere where he lives. We did point out cows and goats as we passed through Yoder.
By the time we got home we were all yawning and the boys went to bed pretty quickly. I was up for a while longer - I am very excited about the next month and getting to know David better.
