Day 1471. I had to set my alarm for 7:30 this morning, as I was teaching from 8 to 10 am. Sammy was already up at 6:45 am, and I got him out of bed and gave him his tablet so he could listen to songs. So my night was really short. And Emmy never came to lie down next to me, which is rare. He asked me later whether I was proud of him, as it shows he's a big boy now.
When the alarm went off, I got up and made some tea for myself, then I sat down to teach. Emmy was up with the alarm, Tammy continued sleeping for some time. By the time I sat down to teach at 8 am, Randy and the kids were all outside the room to have breakfast. I had to wait until I was done at 10 am to eat something.
I had a 10-minute break between my two students, and as my second student was late, I actually started packing our suitcases and got it done so that Randy was able to load up the car before I was done teaching. After I had eaten something, we were ready to all leave the house and get back on the road. Our friends had to all leave the house early, so we'd already said our good-byes to them.
At 10:30 am we drove off to start our long drive to Vicksburg, Misssissippi, which was just over 400 miles, so the longest leg of the 6-day trip from CA to MS. Time seemed to go by rather slow today. As usual, I looked on my phone to find a Chick-Fil-A with a playground along our route to stop at for lunch, and I found one in Tyler, TX. We got there just after 1 pm and parked to go inside. When we walked through the doors, I could tell right away that it was out of order. Just great! I was already really hungry, besides being tired, but this was not going to work. They needed to be able to move . So I looked on my phone and saw that there was a McDonald's with a nice playground just around the corner. I bought the salad I always get there, and then we walked back to the car to go to the McDonald's. Randy got some cheap gas right there, and by 1:30 we pulled up by McDonald's.
There were not a lot of people there, but the kids were excited right away, when they saw the playground and ran to go inside. There were three other kids there that they immediately started playing with. Tammy once again told me that she'd found a new best friend. Soon those kids left, and our kids were the only ones left to play.
Once the food was ready, we sat down to eat, but the kids were eager to go back to playing, including Sammy. Just before 3 pm we decided it was time to continue on our way, even though they would have preferred playing some more.
We had exactly 4 hours left to drive, which was a lot. I did not give them their tablets, as it was time for a nap. They had not had one in a few days, and Tammy said right away that she was not going to sleep. Then she suddenly was the first one to be asleep. Sammy had already sleep for some time before lunch, so he was not going back to sleep. Emmy resisted for some time, but then fell asleep. I tried to get some sleep as well, but Sammy constantly needed me, so it wasn't much.
We drove and drove and only stopped to use the restrooms. We crossed all of Louisiana, and our goal was Vicksburg, right across the Mississippi River and already in Mississippi. Before going to the hotel, we needed t o stop at Walmart to get a few groceries. There was one a few minutes before the hotel, and we got there just before 7:30, so it was already pretty late. Too late to get a rotisserie chicken today. We quickly grabbed what we needed, as we were hungry and tired and just wanted to get to the hotel, and actually left there rather quickly at 8 pm.
When we left Walmart, it was already dark outside. We put everything into the car, then Randy stopped a cheap gas station to fill the car up, before continuing the rest of our way to the hotel, which was only a few minutes away. At 8:15 wee got there and had some trouble finding the office at first. Then we checked in, which was a longer process than usual, and went up the stairs to our room. Much to the kids' disappointment the TV remote control wasn't working, not even after Randy took it to the reception to have batteries put inside. Thankfully I had brought the food inside right away and put it into the microwave to get it ready. Randy brought us some silverware, and the kids had soon finished everything on their plates and started on the icecream. Then we all put our swimsuits on and went to the outside pool.
We were the only ones there, and we were really surprised by how warm the water was. Tammy had even cried in advance because she did not want to go into cold water. We were all having fun, then left about 15 minutes before they closed the pool at 10 pm. It was late, and high time for them to go to bed.
We showered them and dressed them for bed, then I put them to bed and prayed for them. Tammy wanted a bedtime story, and so I made one up as the ones we read are rather long. It was about 10:15 before I turned the light off and turned the starlight on. Now it's 1:20 am, and I would have finished much earlier already had I not been falling asleep all the time. Time for bed.
