6 years 7 months 21 days

Day 2424. One of my morning students had canceled, so I only taught from 11 to noon. Then I warmed up food for us to eat. Randy left at 1 pm to pick up Sammy and take him to his weekly horse riding therapy. He had lots of fun. I was preparing for my next student and left the house at 2 pm to pick up Tammy and Emmy.

I took two buses, then walked to the kids' school. Moments later they came out. We walked to the bus stop, and it felt like it was taking forever to get home. We had to wait a long time for the second bus to arrive and then to leave.

By 3:30 pm we were back home but we only had a few minutes. Randy and Sammy were already home. The kids had icecream, Tammy changed shirts, and I already had my exercise clothes on. They put their helmets on, we grabbed our scooters and went out the door.

We rode the subway for three stops, then rode our scooters to their new tennis school where Tammy had already done her Easter camp. I was a little nervous for myself as I was also taking a tennis class - at the same time as theirs. I'm really out of shape right now so my concern was whether I'd be able to keep up physically. Thankfully it was not warranted.

We put our scooters and stuff into the little club house and walked to he courts. There were some people there, including the second teacher that had done the Easter camp together with the founder and director of the school. The kids went right up to him. There were other kids there that joined them on the back court where they had their class. There were 5 or 6 kids in their group which was really too many. They still had a good time even though Emmy said it wasn't as good as their old tennis school.

There were also a few adults there and then a big, older guy asked my name. He was the trainer. There were three other adults, two women and a man. One of the women also had a child in the kids' group. Another one was from Holland. All three were beginners, contrary to me. I told the trainer about my eye handicap, though, that it makes it hard for me to correctly determine distances and harder to hit the ball. I was curious how I was gonna do with that.

The trainer started by showing us how to do forehand, then we played balls back to him. After they were all gone, we picked them all up again and put them into the basket. Then we did backhand. He let me do it the way I've learned rather than the way it is taught today. Next we did two balls each, one forehand, one backhand, then volley. After that, it was time for the serve; something I had never liked. Then the hour was already over. It had hardly been physically demanding, thank God, and it had been lots of fun. I'm glad I'm taking this class. 

The kids joined me, the tennis club president briefly talked to me about paying the club fees (gulp!), then we made our way to the exit. On the way there Emmy saw the basket ball hoop and wanted to play. He wanted me to film him, and he actually got it in while I was filming. Then we left for good.

Tammy had hurt herself - already in school, and again on the tennis court when she fell, so she had a skinned knee and elbow and was hurting. We rode our scooters to the subway, then rode it home where we arrived at 5:20. It's so nice to not need an hour to go to the tennis courts!

I went straight to the kitchen to cut up fruit for the kids and gave those who wanted more bread. Then I sat down to teach at 6 pm. By 7 pm I was done, and it was time to go downstairs for piano practice. Back upstairs, it was bathtub time. Tammy had already done her reading practice on the subway but Emmy still had to do it. After they had done their Bible verses and brushed their teeth, I prayed for them and they went to bed while I sat down to teach at 8 pm. Tammy lay down in my bed, while Emmy in his own. No fighting over it tonight.

By 9 pm I was done teaching. I took Tammy to her bed and went to the kitchen to get myself something to eat. After having eaten and taken a a break, I went back to work.