Day 2512. I had gone to bed at 12:30 am but it was closer to 1 am before I fell asleep, and this morning the kids were up early and wouldn't let me sleep. I was very tired but got up to pack. I got something to eat, got my tea and once I was done packing, I sat down and waited for 9:30 am to come around so we could go to church. We then got into our car and drove the 10 minutes to our friends' church.
We got the wheelchair out and went to the place where you register your kids for kids' church. I gave them all the information, and we followed them to the room where they were going to be. All the kids were outside on their playground, and Tammy and Emmy joined them there. As they were about to come back in, Sammy stayed inside and got down on the floor to play with what they gave him. A very nice lady was with him and said he'd be alright.
We then went into the sanctuary; the service had already started and worship was going on. It was a smaller church but the room was full. After half an hour of worship, a group came up front to report about their recent missions trip. After that, the pastor came up to preach for half an hour. At 11:30 am the service ended. We walked outside and talked to a few people, then we went to pick up our kids.
All the kids were having fun but were glad to see us. They'd had a good time. We went to our car and returned to the house where it was time to change, close up our suitcases and have Randy load everything into the car. It was getting later and later, and we really needed to get going as we had 7 hours of driving ahead of us. Our friends were so nice to make sandwiches for us to take so that we didn't have to stop anywhere for lunch. At 1 pm we finally waved good-bye and started our long trip east.
I had made sure I had plenty of hotspot data so that all three kids could connect their tablets in the car but it was not working. Sammy was very upset about it while the other two had games they could play that didn't need the internet. I started chatting with customer service to try to resolve the issue and was actually on with them for 2 hours, trying everything in the book to make it work but to no avail. Sammy was really upset. We then video-called friends to distract Sammy, plus I role-played with him which always works to stop his anger or frustration.
We also stopped for a bathroom and icecream break after those two hours, then continued on. I was pretty tired and closed my eyes for a while but the kids never let you sleep long. We drove another 3 hours without stopping. At 6:40 pm we stopped at the McDonald's in Kingman, AZ, as it had a playground. We all needed to stretch. When we got out of the car, there was something like a sand storm so we went quickly inside. I ordered while the kids went straight to the playground, and they had fun. They played with another boy. There were also two interactive tables that they enjoyed. You could wipe the light dots away on one of them which Sammy enjoyed as well. The food was much less impressive, not at all like the McDonald's in Austria.
After an hour there it was time to continue driving. We got some gas and were on our way before it was 8 pm. We had another 100 minutes ahead of us. Randy was getting pretty tired, as were the kids. It was already dark outside. Sammy actually fell asleep at one point and slept a little bit. Emmy had set a new record in how many hours of his soccer game he'd played in a day. We were all counting down the minutes until our arrival at the hotel in Williams, AZ. It was 9:40 pm when we finally pulled up. I went inside right away to check us in and get the key, then we all went to our room.
The kids had said all along that they still wanted to go into the pool but it was already closing at 10 pm, so Randy had to be quick to bring in the suitcases so we could change. When we got to the pool, we had about 10 minutes to enjoy it. Randy chose not to go into the water, so it was just me and the kids who went into the hottub, and we greatly enjoyed it. When it was time, we got out and returned to our room. It was high time for the kids to go to bed. All three lay down in one of the queen beds, while the other one was for us. Once they were in bed, I got my computer out to work on today's pictures and write my report. Now it's 1 am, and in 6 hours my alarm already goes off.
