26 September 2005

The Return - Stage 2

Today is the stage we move from home to the hotel near Atlanta Airport.
After a tearful farewell to David F and his family we went to Church with two cars - one full of luggage, the other full of family. Lana was still pretty tearful and parishioners we met going in didn't help.
In Church Lana had red eyes and the lady in charge of the choir passed over some tissues. Lana decided to take Rose to the Crying room - for both of them.
Ariel, Eric and James brought up the offertory procession and Lana came back in towards the end. Just prior to the end of Mass, Father Wise announced that this was the last Mass in the US the Bruggemans would be attending before they returned to Australia where they all speak funny. (His sermon included the lesson not to look down on others for any reason - including speaking differently)
He had us all come up to the front and had the congregation join him in giving us a blessing for the journey.
During his announcements Father reminded the congregation that as the Bruggemans were leaving, there were a few holes that needed to be filled - youth choir, altar server, Sunday school and so on.
There were many hugs and tears as we said farewell to lots of people. We had to return home to pick up a few things we forgot - principally some bright orange T shirts for all the children to wear tomorrow!
Then it was meeting Ward and Bretta who would take us down and return home with the cars.
I had booked the hotel some time ago, asking for two adjacent rooms with two beds each. We ended up with a room on the 2nd floor and another on the 4th. So much for speaking to the hotel directly! Now one has all the luggage and the girls and the boys are in the other.
So we went to the lobby and had pizza there. Much more room for the children to run around. Tomorrow we awake at 4:00am, for a 5:00am shuttle trip for a 7:00am flight to San Francisco.

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