Panamá: Airport Fun (Day 8)

We have had many firsts, seen another small corner of the world and after a wonderful 8 day journey in Panama, we have arrived home safe and sound! I cannot say thank you enough to all of you for reading the blog and I hope that you enjoy this last summary of our trip!

Our last day of our trip began with a wake up call at 4:45 in the morning. We left for the airport at 5:30 with our bag lunches in tow. These middle school students didn't leave anything behind; that we know of anyway. We took a wonderful ride to the airport and said our farewells to Alonso and Paulino and checked-in. The process was smooth and we were on our way to Houston. We arrived in Houston at around 2:15 and that's when all of the fun started! Although we were faced with a 7 hour layover, we made the most of it! Throughout my travel experiences I have been faced with many long layovers, but this one takes the cake! I was dreading this layover because any layover with students who are ready to be home can be tough, but this one was going to be long. Although I had my doubts, this was an amazing group! We landed and ate lunch, spent an hour catching up journals that they had been to tired to write on tour, completed a scavenger hunt in our terminal, had a group singoff (Pitch Perfect style), and ended the time with a summary of our trip haiku challenge. It was a grand time in the airport and it flew by!

We were welcomed home by a wonderful group of parents! I want to take the last paragraph of this blog segment  to thank them for allowing their kids this wonderful opportunity! My mission is to allow my students to see that the world is a lot bigger than the small little town that they live in, the state where they reside, and even the country that they know. I would not be able to accomplish this mission each year if parents did not allow their children to travel with me. I appreciate the trust and patience that they have with me throughout the year and a half process that is this adventure. These parents provide transportation to meetings, navigate through numerous emails of communications, help their students with anxiety and concerns of travel, schedule doctors appointments, fill out  paperwork, but most importantly they allow their students a chance to adventure into the world without them, many for the first time. As a mother, I know how hard this will be for me in the future and I cannot express the thanks, gratitude and appreciation (yes, I realize that those are synonyms) that I feel for these parents. The students are young and may or may not realize the opportunity they were given and the life skills that they received, but one day they will. From their teacher, thank you. Thank you for them and thank you for me. Thank you. I truly love showing the world to your child.

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