4 years 9 months 14 days

Day 1748. On Saturday the kids have their piano class at 10:30 am. Today it was time for all five of us to go there again. However, before we left, I went downstairs with the kids one last time so they could play their songs on the piano that they were going to present in class. Just before 10 am we left the house together.

We rode the subway downtown and walked to the music school, where we arrived on time. There were more kids in class today that have ever come this class, some from another day probably doing a make-up class. The teacher did the welcome song, then gave the kids the colored stickers for the four notes they know, Do-Re-Mi-Fa, to put them on the  correct keys on their pianos, which they can easily do now. Next she had everyone play the same song, then she got her list out to remember what song each one of them was doing. She asked who wanted to play their song in front of the whole class first, and Emmy's hand shot up with him shouting "me". And so he went up front to the real piano. She helped him onto the stool and then pointed at the notes so he'd know what to play. In fact, both kids play their songs by heart, but it might have helped Emmy after all since he played the song correctly. Everyone applauded, and Emmy bowed in front of everyone and then sat back down. The teacher actually had every kid first say what song they were doing, then sitting down by the piano. Tammy also played her song well.

After all the kids had done their songs, she sat down with them in the front and gave each one of them a tiny instrument that they had to hide. Then she did a song, where she asked for the different instruments. The kids were supposed to sing the one line that they had that specific instrument, when theirs came up, and by the end both Tammy and Emmy were singing their lines, rather than saying that they had it. The kids then turned it around and sang to the teacher, who showed what instrument she had, which impressed the teacher as she had obviously not planned for that.

Then she had the kids form a "singing line" and did the songs they are going to do at the concert next week with them. I believe there were three of them. The kids did well, though the other boys there were not very well behaved, which is never good next to Emmy who then plays along with that behavior. The teacher ended up moving the boy next to Emmy away from him.

Then it was time for the final story followed by getting their stickers for their sticker books. Sammy had been with me for a while, looking at pictures, then he was with Randy, and Randy eventually left the room with him because Sammy wanted to. They were looking at the kids' books outside together.

We left the music school together and walked back to the subway. It was a very hot day again. We walked by a drug store, and as I needed one small item, we went inside. Tammy has been wanting to get some nail polish, and so we were looking for one. Then Emmy also wanted a gift. They had a dinosaur package there that he wanted, and it cost the same as Tammy's. Then we got some more animal cookies that Sammy also likes.

Sammy wanted to go to McDonald's, which was an option, so we did. We took the subway there, then had a great time eating there. They got three new toy animals. Tammy wanted to put her new nail polish on, so I painted her nails. It was transparent with glitter, so you didn't really see much. There was also some lip gloss with glitter in the package.

Instead of going home, we took the subway and waited at the bus stop for a bus that took a long time to come, but then it finally did. We rode it for a few stops and had arrived. I had found out about this goulash-cooking competition and festival, and because it seemed to have all kinds of kid activities, we were going to check it out. Right away we could tell that it was pretty much all out in the sun. The kids could see the jumping castle that they'd been excited about, so we headed straight there. However, when we got there, the lady told us that it was too hot to use it. Just great! They had a little Peppa Pig ride right there - something I had never seen before - and Emmy hopped right in. Sammy joined him there. We put in a coin, and it started moving. There were also about 6 buttons that made the figurines move. The kids were really enjoying it, but it ended way too quickly.

We walked on to see what else there was and got to a tiny ping pong table and a table with chalk to pain on the ground. Randy and Emmy played ping pong, while Tammy did some drawings on the crowd. Sammy and I found some shade nearby and waited there. Then we all walked on and got to the teams making their goulash. There were four contestants right next to each other, and the first one told me I could taste it. So I went down the line and tasted all four. At first the kids tasted it as well, but then they didn't care to. I let the cooks know which ones I liked best. In any case, it was impressive that they cooked over an open wood fire. And as we walked on, we saw many more of those fires with pots of goulash on top.

We were walking in the direction of the stage and stopped there to watch the Hungarian dancers. There was an elderly lady in a wheelchair who started talking to the kids and us. Sammy wanted out of the wheelchair, so we got him out, and Tammy then took advantage of the opportunity to sit down. Sammy was really enjoying the music and dancing along to it. After the first dance, there was a break, and the kids were very impatient for the next group to come on, especially Sammy. We nearly left, but then they finally came, much to Sammy's delight.  After a while we finally decided to move on.

I had seen a food truck with the Czech dessert that we first had in the Czech republic and always ate, when we went to the clinic there. And so we heade there and got one. We sat down at a table in the shade and all shared it together.

We were ready to go home. It was so very hot, and I was tired, but then the kids noticed that the jumping castle - or rather the blow-up slide - was open, with kids going up and down. It was a must for them to go on it, so we went that way. We paied and the kids had to wait for the next round of kids, then they climbed up to slide down. Emmy came to me after sliding down once saying it was way too hot, but then he went back up anyway. The lady in charge there was really unfriendly to everyone, and she told the kids not to jump on the slide. After 5 minutes the fun was over.

Sammy couldn't go on the slide, but right next to it I spotted something he enjoyed far more: water! People were cooling off, and cooks were getting water there. Randy took Sammy there and let him play with the water, even putting his head under the faucet. Sammy had lots of fun.

After everyone was done, we headed out for sure. We went to the bus stop, but those buses come only about every 20 minutes, and so it was so full that we couldn't get on. There's a big beach right there that lots of people headed to in this hot weather, so they should definitely have increased the intervals today. We had no choise but to walk the three bus stops back to the subway, which took a little bit of time. And the kids were getting tired of walking. Tammy started crying, wanting me to carry her, which was out of the question. She cried all the way to the subway, until I could sit down on a bench and have her sit on my lap and hug her. Emmy pointed out that he was not crying. But in the evening, during the night, he woke up crying and coming to me that his feet were hurting so bad and crawled into bed right next to me - twice, since I had carried him back to his own bed once.

We took the subway, then another subway, and got back home at about 4 pm. I was very tired, but Emmy was so eager to put together his lego dinosaurs that it had to be done right away. And so we went downstairs to my office. There were two packs of lego pieces to put together. We started with the harder one, and I helped Emmy to do it. He did a great job. Then he said I could put the second one together all by myself, and I put it together for him. After they were done, I told him I needed to go get some rest and went upstairs. I lay down and closed my eyes, but it takes me a while to fall asleep. I was just falling asleep, when Randy came upstairs with the kids. It was only 5:30, and I was annoyed to not have had a chance to sleep. That was over at that point. I stayed in bed, using my phone, until finally forcing myself up at 6:30 pm to go to the kitchen to make dinner and start our evening routine.