Day 2313. The kids were up early, as usual, Randy got up later to make breakfast for them, and at one point they went downstairs to play. I enjoyed not having an alarm set but sleeping in as long as I wanted to. I got up at 11 am, and after a while I went to the kitchen to warm up leftovers from yesterday for lunch. Then we all sat down to eat.
After lunch, I wanted to work on yesterday's pictures but Emmy wanted to do one of the many packs of different objects to put together that he got. Tammy had received the same box. He came with a kit that had a bag of hundreds of tiny white styrofoam balls that were soon all over the place. He couldn't do the project by himself, of course, but I was gonna help him. I was shocked when the instructions were only in Chinese. I then decided to try out Google Lens for the first time. I held my camera to the instructions and pushed the "translate" button, and as if it was a miracle, I had a picture of the instructions in English on my phone. Wow! That way I was able to read the instructions.
But it was still not an easy job. Together we did it, there were some issues, but it worked. Then he got another kit - an electric car - and again I did most of the work but he helped. However, I had made a mistake and so the car was going backwards - but it was moving, that's what counts!
We went downstairs where Emmy showed Daddy the car he had put together. It was time for piano practice; Tammy was already at the piano. She then practiced the longest she ever has, for 32 minutes. She wasn't happy she hadn't practiced the past two days so maybe that was the reason. Then it was Emmy's turn. He wasn't very motivated and gave me a really hard time, getting me pretty aggravated. After 15 minutes he quit even though there was more to play.
I went upstairs and made sandwiches for them for dinner then I finally turned my computer on but I didn't get far. The kids kept coming to me for different things. At 4 pm we all left the house together.
We got on the subway, then on another one and rode both of them for quite some time. I hadn't told them where we were going; it was a surprise. We were doing reading practice on the way there. We had all put on lots of clothes as I had told them we were going to be outside. It was 0 degrees Celsius today, and there was still some snow left on the ground. After we got off the subway, we started walking in the direction of the entrance, together with a lot of other people. Then we already saw the lit up entrance of the imperial gardens. There were two lines, and we got to go through the empty one as I had bought the tickets online and had them on my phone. The wait time was short until we showed our tickets.
Then we started our long walk through the imperial gardens where there were light installations everywhere. It was really beautiful, and we took some nice pictures. There were lots of people everyhwere, mainly tourists. Tammy and Emmy were enjoying it but Sammy not so much. He was bored and getting more and more cranky. It took quite some time to walk through, and it was really cold. Everyone had frozen fingers. But then we did make it to the exit.
We were pretty close to the Christmas market in front of the castle, so we headed that way instead of going to the subway already. I hadn't been to that market in years, and new people were running it so it was much bigger with more stuff. It was also beautiful with the huge Christmas tree in front of the beautiful castle. We saw a caroussel right away and headed that direction. We bought four tickets, and Sammy got to ride it twice. He was having fun again!
After he was done, we were looking for a place to buy something to drink. Tammy wanted hot chocolate and Emmy punch. Emmy saw some churros and wanted some, so we bought those too. They enjoyed their drinks and dessert. Then we continued walking through the market in the direction of the exit. We saw the little icerink and the huge star at the exit. Then we were back o the street and started walking in direction of the subway. Everyone was ready to go home.
Just before 7:30 pm we were back home, and it was time for a hot bath to warm up. After their bath, we sat down to finish the advent calendar book. I had to take a medication again as the toothpain was so intense, and Emmy prayed for my healing. Then they went to bed after I had prayed for them. It was already going on 9 pm. I stayed lying down in bed waiting for the medication to become effective so I could function again. Then I got up to make myself something to eat, and later I started working on the pictures and my reports again. Now it's 1:30 am, and I still have to clean up the kitchen.
