I met Courtney at Costco at 6:45 on Friday Evening.
Remy was not very happy at the time. I tried to calm her
down a little but she wasn’t having it.
I got the stuff out of Courtney’s Excursion and put it in the
back seat of the Hyundai. I asked the girls about their week
at school. I gave each of them an apple. They ate them.
I told the girls that I was back in “School” for a little while
and that I would have to study alot this weekend so they
would need to play together by themselves quite a bit this
weekend.
We were driving east on 82nd Street, I asked the girls if they
wanted to get something to eat. They said yes. I was naming
off places as we drove past them. One of them was MCL.
One of the girls said “I love MCL”. I said “I haven’t been to one
in over 10 years. Zarah said “Wait…. You are older than 10?”
That cracked me up.
We decided on Fazolis on 86th Street . We went in and ate.
Zarah had fun coloring with the Crayons and paper they
gave her. She also had a good time trying to eat the foot
long spaghetti noodles. After she had her fun and made a
mess on her face, I had her cut the noodles up.
Azure talked quite a bit about an upcoming talent show at
School that she is interested in. She said that her and a
friend want to do a Taylor Swift song.
After we left there, we drove all the way to Sam Ash in
Castleton. I was looking for a beginner Piano book for
Azure. I really didn’t find anything that I thought was good
for her right now. I finally said “Just keep working on the
book you have now, and when you finish it we will get you
another one. She said O.K.
We meandered through the store for about an hour. The
girls played Synthesizers while I looked at guitars.
We got back to Deeyas around 9:30. The girls played with
their American Girl Dolls and made cars for them. Azure
and Zarah pulled the Dolls around in the cars while they
made video tapes of them having car wrecks.
They played good together all weekend. I gave Zarah her
new Android Tablet. She loved it. Of course she watched
“Frozen” right off the bat.
Azure had read the book “Moby Dick” a while back and
wanted to watch the movie of it with her Grandpa Dan.
So I downloaded the 1956 Gregory Peck version and
another one from 1998 and put them on DVD for her to take
home.
I burned Labyrinth to a DVD. It is an 1986 movie starring Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie and a bunch of Jim
Henson puppets.
The 3 of us crashed on the mattress in the basement.
Saturday –
Deeya and Frank and Buku went to Tennis at 7:30 that
morning. The girls had Cereal.
They got on the two laptops and played “Wizard101.com”
for nearly the whole day.
I studied for my upcoming exam on Tuesday. I washed my
clothes also.
Around 2:00 I went to Burger King and got Chicken Nuggets
for Azure and a Cheese Burger with only Kethcup for Zarah
and I got a Veggie Burger.
I had 3 coupons from Speedway that got me 2 drinks for
them and a Pint of Ben an Jerrys Ice Cream.
Deeya and Frank came back around 2:00 o’clock.
A little later Deeya told me that they were going to get a
hotel room for the evening because Brooklynn was in a
“Robotics” contest at the convention center early the next
morning.
They left around 6:00 P.M.
Azure played her keyboard a lot. I found a video tutorial for
the Taylor Swift song “You belong to Me”. It seemed to me
like something she could do.
I helped her with it for quite a while. She would drift back
and forth between excitement and frustration and tears
every few minutes. I kept giving her pep talks.
I guaranteed her that she would be able to play it if she just
kept working on it.
At one point I made her stop for a while because she was
getting so frustrated.
We tried to watch the Labyrinth Movie. I served them Ben
and Jerrys. They got a kick out of how I sliced the Carton
into two pieces to make two “bowls”. I made popcorn for
them also.
Zarah made it about 1/2 hour and decided that it was too
intense for her. She went into my bedroom and watched a
movie on her new tablet and eventually fell asleep.
Azure went back to her Keyboard for again. I eventually fell
asleep on the mattress with Zarah.
Sunday.
I woke up around 9:00 am. Azure was on the mattress in the
big part of the basement. Her Keyboard was on the floor
beside it.
I found out eventually from her that she had stayed up until
5:00 a.m. practicing. I was secretly proud and excited that
she was taking so much of an interest.
I remember when I was about 15 the only effective way my
mom found to punish me was to ground me from my guitar.
I decided to paint a section of water stain on the ceiling in
the basement. I went out to the barn and gathered up a tarp
and a bunch of painting supplies.
I spent a couple hours doing that while the girls played
“Wizard101.com” more.
Zarah begged me to help paint. I eventually let each of them
paint for a few minutes. Zarah said it was scary on the
ladder and that the paint roller was heavy.
After I got done with that we went upstairs and made
pancakes. I let Zarah flip her own. She did better on the
second one.
They went back down in the basement and played more on
the games.
I went outside and changed the left front headlight on the
Hyundai and fed the Chickens.
It was about 40 degrees and sunny. It seemed like a heat
wave compared to the last few weeks.
Then I ran a bath in the “Jacuzzi” for them. They played in
the tub for like 40 minutes.
Later we went to Burger King again and went through the
drive through this time.
Around 3:30 Yudi got home. Azure and Zarah were excited
to see her. They played together for a while.
I asked Yudi if she would watch the girls for a few minutes
while I ran to Auto Zone in Westfield. She said sure.
I got a left front headlight for Franks CRV which had also
recently went out.
I got back to the house and replaced it.
Yudi and Zarah played “Headbandz” while Azure played
keyboards. She was getting really good at it.
We started wrapping things up around 5:45. Azure became
sad and cried a lot. I talked to her for about 30 minutes
I explained that life contains both fun times and difficult
challenges. God designed life like this
to make us grow and learn lifes lessons and be stronger.
I told her that everyone who has ever lived has had many
difficult times and also usually many fun times. It never
changes.
Sometimes School and the routine of home life is frustrating
but every person that has ever grown up has faced
frustration and disappointment at times. No human can
escape it. Life is a series of ups and downs. But the ups make
the downs worth it.
So just do the best you can, be nice to people, and don’t let
others get under your skin (Paraphrasing) and it will all work
out.
We eventually made it out the door around 6:15. We stopped
at Wal-Mart. I got a couple of Money Orders and the girls
each got a piece of candy.
We got to Starbucks at 6:51. Courtney pulled up a couple of
minutes later.She and I got out of the vehicles. She asked
me if I had watched the Bronco’s Patriots game. I told her
no. She said that it had been a good one.
She asked me about my tentative plans to take the girls to the
Grand Canyon on a train during spring break.
I told her that it was a quite a bit more money than I had
anticipated. So I may have to change plans.
I hugged the girls goodbye and went back to my car.
