Day 1467. I had an alarm set for 7:40 this morning, but Emmy came to me just a few minutes before that time. He had not come to our bed all night, contrary to Tammy who came before I had even gone to bed and stayed all night. We got up and all crossed the street together to go to the diner that the hotel was using for breakfast. It was pretty unique. They had a room set aside for the hotel guests, and had a special menu for us that had three choices on it. She told us that the kids were getting the same full-size meals. Nice. We ordered, then I had to leave them there to return to my room, as I had a student at 8:30. I told them I'd come back after I was done if they were still there, but they returned to the room before I was done teaching. Randy then told me it had been a disaster. Sammy would not eat without me there.
I ate my food that Randy had brought with him, together with what they had not eaten. Then I finished packing, and Randy loaded everything into the car right outside our room. It was nearly 10:30 before we left, and we had 400 miles to drive ahead of us. We drove and drove, mostly through desert. There were some dark clouds, and rain, and at times it looked like tornadoes forming. The rain was not going into the hardened desert ground, and so we could see puddles everywhere. But the rain did not last long and wasn't too bad. I was really tired and closed my eyes for a little bit, but someone always needs something from me, so I don't get to sleep.
At 1:15 pm we stopped at a Chick-Fil-A in Casa Grande, south of Phoenix. The kids went straight into the playground, while I ordered the food and then sat down by our table to wait for it. Once it had come, Randy and the kids also sat down, but they were eager to get back to the playground and ate only the bare minimum. At 3 pm we continued on our way; we still had 3 hours of driving ahead of us. Normally I take the tablets away and have them sleep after lunch, but we were crossing into the next time zone, and I figured I had a better chance to get them to sleep an hour earlier than usual at night without a nap. And so I allowed them to continue using their tablets. Even Sammy never fell asleep, even though he looked tired, and he got rather cranky because of it.
We made two more quick stops, one for gas and one to use the restrooms, and I also had to put diapers on both Emmy and Tammy sitting in their car seats, when there was nowhere to stop for a while.
At 7:30 pm - we had just crossed into mountain time zone and turned our clocks forward by an hour - we arrived at our hotel. Randy handed me his ID and credit card at the reception and headed to the restroom. The lady gave me the room key, and I took it, the cards, the tablets, Sammy and the two other kids, and we went in the direction of our room which wasn't far away. Randy joined us a few minutes later and wanted his cards back, but his driver's licence wasn't there. He panicked, and we retraced our steps. I had lost it on the way, with so much in my hands.
Randy unloaded the car, while the kids' were watching a kids' channel. Once he had brought our food inside, everyone ate some, then we put our swim suits on. Everyone was eager to get into the pool that we had passed by on the way to our room. It was an indoor pool.
When we got to the pool, a sign on the door said that it was closed/out of order. Emmy started crying, and I was also really disappointed. We returned to our room, and everyone went into the bathtub, where they ended up having fun as well. After they came out, they had a little more to eat, then we got them ready for bed. By 9 pm they were in bed, but half an hour later they were still all awake. My plan to have them skip their nap to fall asleep faster at night was not working. Tammy fell asleep first, but the boys were still messing around. By 10 pm they were also quiet.
I turned my computer on and started working. Now it's after 1 am, and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow we lose another hour going east, and breakfast is going to be early because of the time change.
