Day 1343. Before I start talking about our long day, I need to tell you what I forgot to write yesterday. Tammy has entered a new phase in her development a few days ago. Whatever I say, her answer is always WHY. What a fun phase! I'm curious to see when Emmy is gonna start doing the same.
Today they had the first session of the next swim course. That meant their 30-minute class was now at 10:30 instead of 10 am, which gave us an additional 30 minutes before we had to leave the house. However, since they are up so early, we could have easily left at 9 am as we used to. Instead we all still had some time until it was 9:30, and so the kids were playing until then, once again all going into Emmy's bed, with me covering their bed up with the comforters, so that they were in a cave, which they love.
We left just after 9:30 and walked to the train station. It was a little chilly, but promising to be a warm and sunny day. We took the 9:50 train, but then we'd just missed the tram taking us to the swimming pool. Even though there were two lines we could take for the two stops to ride, both needed 10 minutes for their next tram to arrive. It seemed that we were going to be late.
It finally came, we got on, and then walked the short distance to the pool. When we walked into the changing room, we were the only ones there. We all changed into our swim suits as quickly as possible and walked to the pool, where the teacher was just finishing the previous class. We'd made it on time!
We got in, and they wanted swim rings on right away. It was a whole new class with all new faces; we were the only ones she knew. What struck me was that most of the other kids were older, and several already knew how to swim somewhat. By the end of the class, I wasn't too happy. It seemed that she'd concentrated on the other kids the whole time and not done anything for our kids to learn anything. She showed everyone how to move their arms to swim, and I tried to get the kids to do it that way. They tried but weren't very successful. First they swam with swim rings, both on their bellies and on their backs, and then with a swim noodle each. They also got to sit on the side of the pool and jump in.
The water was two degrees Celsius colder than it has been, and Sammy was saying the whole time that he was cold. When the class was over, I found out that she had forgotten to bring the certificates for the swim exam they had done last week.
The kids still wanted to stay, but given our afternoon plans, we needed to move. We changed them and ourselves and left to walk back to the tram. There was some grass with lots of dandelions, and the kid started picking them. Emmy then gave me what he had, saying that it was for my birthday (in two weeks), while Tammy kept her bunch of flowers to herself.
We then rode the tram for four stops and got off to go to McDonald's. We had fun eating there, then got on the subway to go to the train station. When we got to the platform, we saw that we had just missed a train and needed to wait half an hour for the next one, the 1 pm one. That was unfortunate. The kids started watching videos, while I could barely keep my eyes open.
By 1:15 pm we were back home, and it was high time to go to bed, which took about 10 minutes. By 1:30 I was already able to walk away without objections from anyone. Some time later I also lay down and closed my eyes, setting a one hour timer. And it was the alarm that woke me up at 2:45 pm. I got up, and we got everyone and everything ready to leave the house at 3 pm, which we did. Randy had had to wake up all the kids, as they were still fast asleep.
It was really sunny now, and so the kids brought along their new sunglasses and caps. I think Emmy looks really cool in this picture, with his glasses and crooked cap. We got on the subway and had to ride it for a while, then we switched to another line that we had to ride for a long time. Randy now lets Sammy hold his phone that children's songs are playing on, as Sammy enjoys them so much, and he asks for them pretty much right away now, when we get on public transportation. As for the other two, they only get to watch on our way home from places.
We had finally reached our destination and started the rather long walk to the entrance of the zoo. There were people everywhere on the sidewalk. It's a long weekend and one of the first nice days, plus there are tourists, which all accounted for the crowds. We had a one-year ticket for the zoo, but because it's so far, and we're so busy, and it's been so cold, we had hardly used it at all. Today was the last day it was valid. And my friend we were meeting there at 4 pm also had a yearly ticket.
They weren't there yet, and so we walked to the reptile & aquatic house right by the entrance and went inside. It was terribly crowded! We never even saw any crocodiles, even though Emmy wanted to see them really bad. Instead we saw lots of fish and jellyfish and reptiles. The huge tortoise had also died, so no tortoise either. While we were walking through, my friend suddenly stood next to me, and we met up with them again outside. I hadn't seen her in many months, so it was nice to get to spend some time together, even though we barely got to talk. We went to the giraffes next, then tried to see the orang utans without success, then saw some other monkeys, before getting to the elephants. We walked by zebras and flamingos and reached the penguins. They were swimming right by the kids, which was fun.
Emmy had been eager to see the seals, and they were right there as well. However, it seemed that only one or two were in there, but at least the one swam by a few times. Then we continued on to the polar bears that were nowhere to be seen. We continued on to get to the petting zoo and had to pass the playground. Suddenly the kids wanted to go play even more than going to the petting zoo! I was able to convince them to go on, promising them they'd get to play after.
We walked into the (new) petting zoo area, where sheep and goats run around freely but have a chance to get away from people if they want to. There were lots of people there too. Whenever a goat was where the people were, kids were trying to pet them. There were quite a few pregnant one. Tammy petting them, but Emmy was still too scared to do so. Sammy also had some respect, but he does pet them.
And then there was a sheep that had just given birth. The litte one was still covered in blood, but already standing and trying to drink, while the Mom was licking it.
We walked on to go to the rabbits; unfortunately they cannot be petted there. Tammy really wanted to, but was only able to touch one briefly through the fence. In any case, they were eager to get to the playground, so we left again to do just that. My friend was already there with her son. Our kids immediately joined in the fun. I had Sammy and got him out of the wheelchair for the first time. There was a short but steep slide, and as he enjoys slides a lot, I put him on top. First he slid down on his back, then I remembered how much he enjoyed sliding on his belly face-first, so he did that a few times having fun.
After some time, we decided to move on. Sammy did not want to go into his chair, and as he's also getting heavy, I first put him on one shoulder, then decided to try to put him on my shoulders like I do with the other kids. Sammy always laughs, when you pull his legs apart, and so he was laughing pretty much the whole time he sat on my shoulders. He was holding on to my head, but I also had to hold his hand to make sure he stayed upright. He did not want to come back down, but I eventually I had to and put him back into his chair against his will.
We were heading to the rhinos, and as soon as Tammy saw the big rhino statue, she ran to go sit on top of it. She visibly loved it! Emmy wanted to climb up there as well, but he's scared of heights, so that he did not like it at all. I couldn't even get him to look at the camera and smile. Randy pulled up Sammy to the rhino, and he gave it a kiss. Then we went to see the real rhino who had his backside turned to us, before turning around to make our way back to the entrance/exit, as it was 6 pm and they were announcing that they were closing at 6:30 pm.
We walked by the pelicans and reached the tigers. We saw one lying up high resting. Then we got to the lions and only saw one female resting. Next came the hippos, and they never showed themselves completely, as they were in the water. We saw no pandas, but were happy when the kangaroos were close to the fence and eating, so that we got to have a close look. The rat house was right there as well, and Emmy wanted to go inside, so I took him and Tammy, but we didn't see any rats. Our final animal to see were the koalas, but we did not see the newborn there either. Then we walked to the exit and left the zoo.
We still had that long walk to go back to the subway and enjoyed some more time with our friends, even being in the middle of the crowd going the same direction. We then said our good-byes as they were getting on a tram. We got on the subway, and then another one, and got back home at 7:30 pm.
The kids continued watching what they had started on the subway, while I started making their dinner. Then they went into the bathtub, where they ate that food while having fun. Then we got them out and ready for bed. Even though it was late, we still read a Bible story, then I prayed for them and flew them into bed. It was close to 8:40 pm, so much later than usual. I sat with them for a few minutes, then Randy sat in the chair, while I went to the kitchen to get myself something to eat. After having eaten, I started working on today's pictures. Now it's 1:30 am and time to clean up the kitchen and go to bed.
