5 years 10 months 28 days

Day 2158. Sammy was up long before 8 am, and Emmy woke up right away as well. I lay down next to Tammy in the other bed who was still peacefully sleeping - until her brother woke her up as well. Then we all got up before my alarm went off at 8 am, and we went downstairs to have breakfast.

There were quite a few people in the breakfast room. We got some food and sat down to eat. After a while, I left to return to the room, and Tammy and Emmy came with me. I had a 9 am student and needed to get ready. Soon after Randy and Sammy also came to the room.

I started teaching at 9 am and had four hours of teaching to do, until just before 1 pm. Randy and the kids stayed in the room the whole time, and everyone was on their electronic devices the whole time. As soon as I was done teaching, I got the leftover pizza out of the fridge and warmed it up for lunch. It was just the amount we needed.

After having eaten, everyone returned to their devices. I really wanted to get a nap in, but I also wanted us all to take a shower. And so, after some time had passed, I told everyone to turn their devices off, and we went to the bathtub for a shower. Tammy started screaming. I still don't know why but she screamed the way she does when she's overly tired. Everyone got their shower in, then we asked them to take a break from the tablet they'd been watching all day. Again Tammy started screaming. She really needed a nap as it had been late last night but early this morning. In her fury she hurt Emmy, and I could not contain her. I told her to stop screaming as someone was going to call the police on us. I forced her to bed and held her, trying to get her to calm down and take a nap. She finally calmed down and did fall asleep next to me, as did I. Randy was able to first get Emmy to sleep, then Sammy, then fell asleep himself.

I was woken up by Randy who was saying that it was already 5 pm. It was time to get up and get going. The conference location was only just over 10 minutes away, and the conference was to start at 7 pm, but registration had started at 4 pm. Now it was Emmy who was screaming after I had woken him up. I was trying to get him dressed which wasn't easy with his resistance and screaming. Eventually everyone was dressed and ready, and we left. Emmy was still screaming, and only slowly calmed down in the car on the way to the conference.

By 5:40 pm we arrived at the church. It was a huge building, and we later found out that it was Todd White's church. People were already arriving from every direction. We walked in - after conquering the chairs with the wheelchair - and found ourselves right at the registration tables. We lined up and got our badges as well as a reservation sheet for the seats with a schedule on it. People were already in line to get into the sanctuary but the doors were to open up at 6:30 pm, and it was only 6 pm. We started walking in the direction of the children's conference rooms and saw the registration table. They only started registering kids at 6:30 pm as well. We continued walking and saw a playground. We went outside but it was for smaller kids and not interesting to our kids, so we returned inside. We continued walking, then turned around and went all the way back to the sanctuary doors. We decided to go in and get our seats and to then go register the kids. 70% of seating was upstairs, but with Sammy we were allowed to sit on the ground floor. The kids were impatient waiting for the doors to open up, especially Sammy. Once they did, we reserved our seats and turned around to go to the kids' regisration table.

The line was quite long and moving slowly. We all started talking to the Mom with her daughter in the line in front of us. After a while, I suggested to Sammy that we'd go to the table to see whether Heather was there. So we went to the front of the line but there was no Heather! Sammy met Heather on the Zoom call and was looking forward to seeing her in person. And then she came walking up to the table. She recognized Sammy right away and greeted him warmly. Then she told her assistant to register us right away. The kids all got green armbands as they're on the green team, and I signed them in on the screen. Heather then led the way to the entrance of the children's conference area which was as far as we were allowed to go. A guy helped with Sammy's wheelchair as there were once again steps. Sammy waved us good-bye, Emmy was excited to go, and Tammy was the one who didn't want to leave us and stretched her arms out to us as she walked away. 

We then returned to the sanctuary where the service was just starting. It was quite cold, and I was glad that I had my jacket with me. However, it was  not warm enough for how cold it was so I was freezing for the whole 3 hours I was there.

Randy Clark opened the conference, then it was time for worship. After one hour, another lady did some talking, then Randy Clark did more talking. They did an offering, then the speaker of the night came. I had never heard of him before but he was funny and had great stories. After he was done preaching, he had people who fit some specifics he was listing stand up to minister. As it was nearly 10 pm, it was time for us to leave and pick up the kids at 10  pm.

We went to the registration table that was also the pickup table. There we had to give them our paper, and they were calling inside to have our kids brought out. The door was a short distance away, and as soon as they kids stepped through it, Tammy started running towards us and hugging us, then Emmy did the same, then Sammy came rolling up to us, happy to see us. We found out that they had all had a great time at their conference. They had played games, won points, had worship and a teaching, and had done some coloring. Emmy said he'd found a few friends, while Tammy said with sadness that she hadn't. 

We had not eaten dinner, and I was very hungry. At least the kids had had some snacks. We decided to get a Domino's pizza again as it was the quickest option. I ordered on my phone, and we walked to our car, then drove off. It was 7 minutes to get there. The pizza was already ready, so Randy just had to pay. Then we had another 7 minutes to drive to the hotel where we arrived just after 10:30 pm. We went to our room and ate the pizza, then we got the kids ready for bed. At 11:15 pm they were STILL awake. The only way they'll make it through this conference is to take a nap every afternoon. Tomorrow morning, they have to get up really early again. After they were in bed, I turned my computer on to work on the pictures and the report. Now it's after 1 am and time for me to go to bed. I have to get up early myself after all.