Day 1240. This morning Sammy already woke up at 5 am, and we couldn't get him to fall back asleep. Soon Emmy was up as well. Sammy ended up in our bed and he tends to scratch, so sleep was over. I'd had less than 4 hours of sleep. At 7 am we got up. Randy started changing their diapers, while I was dressing them. Tammy was the last one to wake up. She sleeps really well.
We went downstairs for breakfast, then returned upstairs to put their skiing clothes on and leave to make the 9:25 bus. There's always a lot to do to get everyone ready to leave, but today we got to the bus stop plenty early. We got on the bus and rode it the few minutes to the skiing resort. After getting off the bus, we started walking to the skiing school area, across the parking, up the stairs and across the slope. We went to the hut to put their shoes on, then got their skis and went up to their training slope, where they had also been the past two days.
Tammy wasn't very motivated to start with today. After only one time down the slope she wanted to quit, but I encouraged her to go on. And then I started getting very involved and playing with them, and I did that during the whole time until 12:30. It was work, it was fun, it kept me busy and on my feet, but it also kept them going to the very end.
Today they started teaching them how to break. They had a huge pizza piece that the put between their skis to teach them the position their feet should be in. However, it was pretty rare for them to actually have their feet in that position.
We had been told about a "snow playground" right there and had wanted to take Sammy there. I had tried to prepare the kids by telling them if we were not there, then we had gone over there and were coming back a little while later. We actually had not been there long, about 20 minutes, when Randy and I took off with Sammy after having told the skiing instructor. We just walked away and found the playground.
There were two big elephants there for the kids to ride, and a mother gave us one ride away. And so Sammy rode the elephant for a while, with me and with Randy. They also had a moving carpet to go up a very flat hill. After only a few minutes we were wondering how the other two were doing having noticed our absence. It was certain that they were crying, and they were. We decided to make our way back there. As we were walking over there, we saw that their class was in the caroussel. None of the kids had been motivated (the famous third day), and so the teachers had already taken them to the caroussel at 10:30. The kids were really excited to see us.
We then walked back to the slope with them, and that's when I started playing hard with them for the next two hours. I was actually amazed that I even got Tammy to ski again, as she had not wanted to at all. I told them I'd be down faster than them, and then ran, never being quite fast as them, which delighted them.
At one point they took a break, and they had this game of throwing a hoop over a pole again that they played briefly. Then the teacher encouraged them to continue skiing. She put the hoops into their hands and pretend to drive a car. Now they were gonna drive a car down the hill.
I'd been so busy with them that Randy had had to take care of Sammy by himself. When I looked over at them, Sammy was asleep on Randy's shoulder. That was no surprise given his early start this morning.
At about 12:15 we slowed down. The kids were done skiing. They wanted to do snow angels instead, like they had seen in their videos, and lay down on the ground to make them. Then we went inside the hut to put their regular shoes on, put their skis in storage, and went to the meeting point to be picked up. We asked whether there was enough room for us adults, but he said that the kids could only come without us. I asked them, and while they wanted to ride the car really bad, they did not want to go without us. And so we told them that we were taking the bus. As we walked away, they were really upset and cranky about us not taking the car. We just didn't want to have to wait for the car to come back fo us. We knew that the bus was leaving shortly, and so we made our way to the bus stop.
We were the only ones there, and had about 7 minutes to wait. We then were the only ones in the bus as well. It's the first ski bus of the day going back to the residential area. We told the driver where we were going, and he dropped us off right in front of the house. As we got off, the car with the kids was also pulling up. We had made the right choice.
We went to our room, took our skiing clothes off, and went downstairs to have lunch. We sat in the fireplace room again, the only ones there, and they brought the kids' plates, while we had to order a little something if we wanted to eat. They all ate, then we went upstairs for nap time. As Sammy had already taken his nap, Randy put him into the stroller and went to the nearby grocery store with him, while the rest of us lay down to sleep. Tammy wanted to sleep in Sammy's bed, and Emmy lay down next to me. Thankfully it was earlier than yesterday, about 2 pm, and we all soon fell asleep. At 2:45 Randy returned, which woke us up. It took about another hour before we were ready to leave the room to go play.
We got to the kids' play area and checked to find out what the program was. Once again the main part was over, and they were about to do crafts. Tammy sat down at the table for that right away, while Emmy was not interested. I'd brought my computer with me to do some catching up, and so it was Randy who played with the boys in the climbing and balls area, and then went to the other area for them to play. Tammy also joined Emmy at one point in the climing/balls area, while Randy was with Sammy in the other room. Once again there was some conflict between them and other kids, but nothing serious. I then moved to the other room to work, while Randy stayed with them, and the kids soon followed me there.
Around 5 pm we asked if they wanted to go swimming, and so we soon left to go to our room to change into our swim suits, then went to the pool. We were the only ones there again. And we had lots of fun again. The kids wanted me to be an octopus and shark and dolphin, and to dive under them and all kinds of things. However, I could do that with Tammy and Emmy, or take care of Sammy. Both wasn't really possible. We have to constantly keep Sammy vertical, so his mouth does not go under water. We were all having lots of fun.
Then we showered off and left to return to our room. We had been told that the mascot for the hotel was coming just before 6 pm, and as our kids are so scared of full-sized people in costumes, I knew it was nothing for them. Still, we stopped at the play area on the way to our room to see if it was still there, but it had left. We might get another chance this week to see whether the kids are still scared or not. They sure claimed they weren't.
We changed back into our clothes and went to the dining room to eat. It was already 6:45 again. I got some food for them from the kids' buffet, then got some salad and bread for myself, and soup for Sammy. All three kids actually ended up eating tomato soup and really liking it. Randy likes it too, but not me. After they were done eating, I let them go to the play area. They have a special kids' program until 7:30 so parents can eat in peace. Yesterday we were eating to late, but today I took them over there. They had a projector on the ceiling that projected an underwater world onto the ground. And it reacted, when you jumped into the water and touched the fish or jellyfish. The kids sure enjoyed it, and I returned to our table to eat. Sammy is now obsessed with the baby games on the phone, especially the duck game, and as soon as he's done eating he asks for it and gets very upset, when he doesn't get it. When he gets tired of it, he wants to hear kids' songs or just make the screen move. And so the phone kept him busy and happy, while we were eating. The other two kids came for a few times for various reasons. At 7:40 Randy went to bring them back, and they then watched videos while we were feeding them apple crumble and icecream for dessert. And so it was once again rather late, about 8 pm, when we left to return to our room for bedtime.
We got them all ready for bed, and it took until just after 9 pm for them to fall asleep. Except for Sammy whose nap had been so early in the day; he was gone really fast tonight, without needing my hand to hold it. He did want me to sit by him, though, which I did. After they were all asleep I moved from the floor to the bed to continue editing pictures. I also purchased lift tickets and reserved skis and boots for myself to go skiing the next two days. I'm very excited about that. And so my goal was to go to bed much earlier tonight, and hopefully nothing wakes Sammy up early in the morning, like last night, when Emmy could not find his pacifier and there was just too much noise as a result. It's nearly midnight now, and I'm the only still awake. Hopefully not for long.
