6 years 4 months 6 days

Day 2319. On Tuesday Randy had to get up early and leave the house with Sammy at 8:30 am so they could get to his 9:30 am appointment across town. They had made a corsett and full-length leg braces for him and needed to put them on to see whether there were any pressure points they needed to fix. The poor guys ended up staying there until 5:30 pm, so 8 hours, and they had nothing to eat, only some candy. It was nearly 6:30 pm by the time they got home. Sammy's dinner was waiting for him.

Tammy, Emmy and I continued sleeping after they had left. Eventually I got up and cooked lunch. After we had eaten, I went to work on my computer, but we soon went downstairs for piano practice, and I asked them to take a break from their tablets. I taught from 3 until 5 pm, then made their dinner, then taught again from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. Then it was bathtub time, followed by story time. After I had prayed for them, they went to bed while I went to the kitchen to get myself something to eat. After having eaten, I went back to work on the computer.

This past night was even rougher than the night before. Emmy had a fever again and Tammy was also feeling miserable, both of them plus me coughing a lot. And Tammy joined us in bed as well, not just Emmy, which also a space issue as our bed is too small so there was not much sleep last night. Sammy was up first at 6 am, Emmy got up at 7 am or so and Tammy stayed with me until 8:30 am. Both of them had a pretty miserable day being sick which was very obvious. For me it was my worst day of being sick, having a fever as well. I got to sleep for 90 minutes in the afternoon.

We all took it easy in the morning. Randy left with Sammy to buy baguette for our special New Year's Eve dinner as well as more fever medicine. It was before 12:30 pm when we sat down to eat the soup I had made yesterday and had warmed up. However, Tammy ate nothing and the boys very little. Sammy had been saying all day that he wanted to go downtown for the New Year's Eve program as Kasperl was coming, and right now he really enjoys Kasperl. We had planned to go, but with us all being sick, I didn't think it was a good idea and Randy didn't want to go with Sammy by himself. Sammy was so upset that I finally agreed to take him, and then Emmy wanted to come as well.

And so the three of us left the house at 1:15 pm and rode the subway to the end, to downtown. I felt pretty miserable and was wondering whether that was really a good idea but Sammy was so very excited. After we got off the subway, we had two elevators to take to get to street level, but the second one was broken. Just great! I gave Emmy the bag that hangs off the wheelchair, and got on the escalator with Sammy. It worked out fine; we did the same thing coming back.

It was still a bit of a walk, and there were crowds of people everywhere as lots of tourists come at this time of year. We made our way through the crowd and reached the big stage for the kids program just before 2 pm which was the starting time. Right on time, the four people leading through the kids' program on Austrian TV came out to spend 10 minutes greeting everyone. Sammy was impatient for Kasperl to come. And then he did. But it was a grown-up dressed as Kasperl, not a puppet show telling a story which was disappointing. Instead they did a trivia quiz, with one of the leaders in the crowd with a microphone to find kids who knew the answer. Emmy walked up closer to her, and in the end she handed out snap armbands to all the kids around her which included Emmy. He was really excited. As for Sammy, he still enjoyed seeing Kasperl and enjoyed the Kasperl song we sang in the beginning and in the end. After Kasperl had left, we left as well.

We started our long walk back to the subway. Emmy was shaking because it was so cold and his fingers were frozen. The cold wind made it feel even colder than it was. We were glad when we were back on the subway home, able to warm up. Emmy and I actually closed our eyes, and Emmy fell asleep next to me. I just wanted to get home.

By 3:15 pm we were back home, and I went straight to bed and slept for 90 minutes. After I got up, we went downstairs for piano practice. Even though Tammy didn't feel well, she practiced for 25 minutes with me. Then it was Emmy's turn but he was in rebellion and refused to practice.

We went back upstairs as it was after 5 pm and time to start working on the fondue, our dinner. Randy cut the baguette into small pieces while I grated the three different cheeses. Tammy and Emmy were helping a little as well, stirring the cheese in the put. Once it was ready, we sat down at the table and put the pot with the cheese on the hot plate, then stuck the pieces of bread on our skewers and dunked them into the cheeses, covering them with the beautiful liquid gold. Tammy already said in advance that she didn't like melted cheese so she got a piece of bread with hard cheese on it instead. Sammy loved it, and Emmy wasn't too excited either, not eating very much. After we were done, we all had chocolate cake. Then we sat down by my computer; Sammy was impatient to watch all the videos of this past year. But his siblings wanted to read a Bible story first, so we did. Then we started the marathon.

I had around 700 videos from this past year, and we only got until early March. Tammy was already sleep right by my feet at that point, and the boys were pretty tired as it was approaching 9 pm. I prayed for them and sent them to bed. Then I started working on pictures and my report.

At 11:45 I woke the kids up so we could go to the roof for the fireworks, just like we do every year. Sammy didn't want to go, and Tammy and Emmy being sick, they didn't want to go either. And so I went up there by myself. Last year, there were about 15 people on our roof, this year I was the only one. It was cold and windy. I was surprised there were as many fireworks as there were given the strong wind. I prayed and enjoyed the fireworks, then made my way back to the apartment. It was just too cold to stay any longer. I got back on my computer to finish my report, then cleaned up the kitchen and went to bed.