On Her Way

Mary's on her way to Madrid to study abroad for the spring quarter. We're a little jealous and a lot sad. Her visit with us these past few days was short but sweet and we miss her already. Here she is yesterday at Barnes and Noble, jotting down yet more travel ideas from some of their guide books.

For last night's going away dinner, John came over and we had our first grill in Missouri and our first grill of the year. The meat of choice: hamburgers, of course!

We are all sad to see Mary go. Allie especially. She loved having Mary home these past few days. With Mary here and with John and Troy in town, there was a lot more activity around the house and Allie thrives on that.

Before she left town, Brad made sure we kept Mary honest by making a record of the latest "tallest female Harrison" competition. Mary likes to think she's tall but even with her cheating head tilt I think you'll agree I've still got her beat on height. For the first time ever, we took a photo to prove it. The next time she trash talks about her height, I'll pull out the evidence!

Of course we missed Peter not being here for the farewell, but it was still a treat to have four of the five of us together to send Mary off.

Today at the airport, Mary was all set to go! She flew to Dallas and from there she's onto Madrid until the end of June (when she'll return to Stanford for her summer research job). Her flight from Dallas to Madrid has a handful of kids from her program on it (there are about 40 kids - all from Stanford - in her program), and while I was writing this post she texted me to say she's already met up with some of them. When they land, all 40 of them meet in downtown Madrid and immediately leave on an orientation trip to Barcelona until Sunday.

We got to the airport early and had a nice amount of time to sit and have a snack and chat before she had to get to her plane. In talking about her plans for travel while she's there, I was half-tempted to buy a ticket and tag along. She's going to have a great experience!

But of course I'm not serious about tagging along - this is her journey and it will be a fantastic adventure. She studies in Madrid (all classes in Spanish) and has three trips within Spain that are part of her program. In addition to that, she's saved her pennies these past two years of working and has plans to visit other places in Europe while she's there. In the end it should all add up to three terrific months!