Day 1464. At the apartment we are staying at, the living room with the sofabed they're sleeping on is quite a distance from our bedroom. And so I had to help Tammy find her way to our bed in the middle of the night, while Emmy suprised me, as he was able to get to us by himself, and he also returned to his bed at a later time.
At 7:15 am my alarm woke me up. I could hear Sammy call me all the way from the other room, even though Emmy was there. I got up and got him off the bed and took his night braces off. I made some tea and got ready for my 8 am student. Randy got up and made breakfast for them that they ate while I was teaching. After I was done, we got ready to leave the house and run some errands.
We drove 15 minutes to the nearest Staples, where I went inside by myself to get a new computer bag. Then we continued on to Walmart, which was just around the corner. We all went into the store and enjoyed grocery shopping together. Sammy was very hungry, and so he got some of the food in our cart before we had paid for it. After we had paid, we loaded everything and everyone into the car and returned to the hotel.
It was already 11:15, and I was very aware of the time, as I was teaching at 12:30 pm. I immediately started cooking lunch with what we had just bought. While waiting for it to cook, I prepared my lesson, then everyone sat down to eat just before 12:30. I ate while serving the others, then sat down at the computer for my lesson. While I was teaching, the kids were pretty noisy and seemd to always stay around me. Randy was not able to keep them away, even though the apartment has plenty of space.
After I was done teaching at 1:30, we gave them a little more time to play, and at 2 pm it was time for their nap. That was the beginning of a few quite aggravating and nerve-wrecking hours because of their behavior. I put all three kids in their quite large bed, but had a hard time getting them to sleep. I kept trying and trying, but to no avail. I told them that whoever was not sleeping was not going swimming. It was really aggravating. Finally Tammy and Emmy fell asleep, as they wanted to go swimming. So did Sammy, but he never went to sleep. Trying to get him to sleep kept me from sleeping myself. I finally put him down and lay down in my bed, where Randy was, being pretty frustrated. I was hoping he'd fall asleep with me gone and his siblings sleeping, but that was not the case. Instead I heard Emmy scream because Sammy had crawled on top of him. And so Emmy was up, and I hadn't gotten my nap in, and I was not amused. I was annoyed and did not want to go anywhere with anyone. Randy wanted to take Sammy swimming anyway, even though I had said no sleep no swimming. Sammy was crying because he wanted to join us. I finally offered him grace, after his siblings had approved it, and he took it. He was getting what he did not deserve.
All the drama had taken time, and so it was 5 pm by the time we left the house. We picked up some of the hotel's sand toys, then started walking along the street to find where the rocks ended and the sand started. We had to walk quite a bit and then still walk over rocks to get to the sand. And then the high tide meant that the waves were coming all the way to the rocks, which was not ideal. Plus I had forgotten the bag with their swim rings. And so Randy said to keep walking to where there was more sand without waves covering it.
Once we had picked a spot, Tammy immediately started building with the sand toys, while Emmy preferred playing firefigther and using his watergun to put out fires. I myself sat down on the ground to show them what a sand castle could look like, but it wasn't really that easy. And the waves did come all the way at times. The water was really cold, too cold to go into the ocean, but our feet got used to the temperature.
After we had been there for a while we decided to go back and go into the pool. It was even harder to walk over the stones to get back to the sidewalk, and a lady there helped us. Then we started walking and walking and walking to get back to the hotel.
Once back, we went straight to the pool, while Randy tried to find the swim rings I had set down somewhere and forgotten to pick back up. A few minutes later he joined us with them, and we put them on the kids, who happily went into the water. They then had lots of fun jumping and swimming, and all three wanted me to throw them into the air so they would fall into the water. Tammy, though, was the only one who wanted to sit on my shoulders and have me throw her backwards making a flip.
We were the only ones left at the pool and then also left to return to our apartment. We showered, then I made dinner. Sammy was once again really hungry, and they all had fries right away, as I could warm them up quickly. Then I boiled some fresh corn that was really good, and everyone devoured it. After they had all eaten, they had some dessert, then it was time to get them ready for bed. I still read them a bedtime story, then prayed for them, and by 8:45 they were in bed. Sammy fell asleep right away, while the other two stayed awake for quite some time. I sat down at the computer to work. And somehow it's now nearly 2 am, and I teach again in the morning.
