4 years 8 days

Day 1468. This morning I had my alarm set for 8:15, as breakfast ended at 9 am, and the alarm actually woke us all up. Tammy had slept half the night in our bed again, while Emmy actually never came, but they did end up in their bed together in the morning, and I couldn't pass up taking a picture of the three of them looking so cute.

We got up and went to the breakfast room, ate, then returned to our room, where I finished packing, then Randy loaded everything into the car. At 10:10 we all got into the car and hit the road again. However, Randy still wanted to fill up the car, so I looked for a cheap gas station and found one down the road. We had to drive through the town for a few miles and were amazed by what we saw. Everything was really run down and much looked abandoned. It was more like a ghosttown, but the gas station we ended up at was not. By the time we left there, it was nearly 10:30 again and high time to move on. We had 400 miles of driving ahead of us.

I found a Chick-Fil-A in El Paso, but then on short notice we decided to go to Cracker Barrel instead, as we had a gift card for it and we hadn't gone there yet. As expected the kids liked the store there. We got there at 12:50 and were told it was a 15-minute wait time, so we used that time to walk through the store. Of course the kids found some stuff they wanted.

We were then seated in the restaurant, and Randy made me take all three kids with me to return to the store to buy them a toy each, and I had also found a shirt I liked. It wasn't easy with Sammy on my arm, and we had to stand in line to pay. That's when Randy came, telling us that the food had come to the table. After we had paid, we all returned to our table to eat. And we really enjoyed our food. We talked about still going to Chick-Fil-A for them to use the playground, as it was just across the street, but then decided against it because it was already 2:30 pm, when we left. We decided to possibly stop at one at a later time.

The kids enjoyed their toys in the car; Tammy and Emmy had little hand-held fans, and Sammy had a ball, but he wanted to have a fan as well. And so we stopped at the next Cracker Barrell, and only Tammy and I went inside to get her another fan after she had given hers to Sammy. She ended up with a Peppa Pig princess. Then we finally continued on our way.

Yesterday we had lost an hour moving to another time zone, and today we were doing the same, losing another hour, which meant that I let them skip their nap. They continued using their tablets, and Sammy sure got cranky and time-intensive, as he was tired. I was so tired myself, but it was simply impossible to get any sleep, as someone always needed me, usually Sammy. It was really aggravating. And then Sammy would keep throwing down his tablet or whatever else he was playing with, and he was whining the whole time. TIme was just passing too slowly. The only thing that works, when he's that cranky, is to open the windows with the electric opener, and I always play that he was the one to  open it, and then I ask him to close it again. He loves this game, but Randy does not, as it botheres him.

Half an hour before we arrived Tammy's tablet ran out of juice. Somehow she and Emmy then got into some arguments that lasted until we arrived at the hotel just before 8 pm. It was loud in the car the whole time. I asked Emmy if he did not want to go to the pool tonight.

We checked into the hotel and went to our room, where the kids wanted the TV turned on, while Randy was unloading the car. We got all our leftover food out, and they ate what they wanted, then I put their swimsuits on them. After Randy was also ready, we all went to the pool. We were the only people there. The water was pretty cold, but we went in anyway. The kids were having fun. After some time we went into the hot tub, and went back and forth a few times. Then we got out to return to our room.

They ate some more, then we got them ready for bed. I read them a story, then prayed for them, and put them to bed. It was 9:30 pm local time, which was only 7:30 where we  were two days ago. It took some time for them to fall asleep, but it could have been worse. I turned my computer on and started working. Now it's 1:20 and time to go to bed.