We had to be up rather early this morning so that we could get to the Rainforest Cafe to do the breakfast with Santa event that they are having there. We have reservations for the 8:15 seating which would not be bad if we didn’t have six kids, eleven people and people driving down from League City and Friendswood. It is a logistically challenging morning, but far better than it would have been if the kids had not all spent the night here at the condo. That worked out incredibly well.
Dominica and Francesca were here, at the condo, by around seven or just after and it was a bad scramble to get all six kids ready to head out by eight when we needed to leave. It was such a bad dash that, in reality, we were all ready by just around seven thirty and left wondering what had been forgotten because we were all ready so quickly!
Getting down to the Rainforest Cafe was easy. Emily and I drove down in the Spark. Everyone else trailed behind. They ended up being ten minutes after us because Madeline lost her iPhone and they had to look for it to make sure that she had not dropped it but they could not get into the condo to check for it there because I had the only set of keys.
Breakfast ended up being really great. There were not very many people there, surprise surprise, as who things of the Rainforest Cafe in association with seeing Santa, but they did a good job and we enjoyed breakfast. The kids all got their pictures with Santa while we were there and the food was very good. It was a buffet.
After we ate Garrett and Dominica’s dad went and did the dark ride that they have there. All of the girls (all five of them, not just the three littles) decided that they wanted to do “Build A Bear” instead. I held down the fort in the restaurant for forty minutes because it took that long to pay and there was supposed to be a raffle that we had to wait for but never happened. So I just sat there alone playing Trivia Crack on my iPhone (in Spanish and Greek) while I waited.
The girls had so much fun doing Build a Bear. Liesl decided to get a snow leopard that she named “Cuta” and Luciana got a panda bear that she named “Spot.” I’m told that the entire process was completely adorable and that they were really into it and had an awesome time. And they both completely love their stuffed animals. They were so excited to show them off and have been totally attached to them ever since. The older girls have been collecting these for years, I hear.
It was more than two hours at Rainforest Cafe by the time that we were all done. A very long morning.
Dominica and Francesca decided that they had more work to do at the house so asked if I could watch the kids for another day.
Back at the condo we set up with the Steam system and Madeline set out playing more of Back to the Future: The Game. By the end of the day she was into the fourth episode. Getting close to the end.
Liesl decided that she wanted to stay in the condo with Madeline, surprise surprise, while Emily and I took the other three, Garrett, Clara and Luciana, out to the beach for a while. Emily and I stayed dry while the three little ones went out into the Gulf. Luciana stayed pretty close to shore never letting the waves go over her pants. Garrett managed to go fully in and swam for a while. All in all we were probably out there for close to two hours.
After swimming, Emily and I went to Sonic down the street and got food and ice cream for everyone. Liesl never manages to get ice cream from Sonic because the moment you say the name she insists that she “doesn’t like Sonic” and refuses to discuss what they have or if she would want to get anything. She has some weird, stubborn thing about it and has missed out on a lot of ice cream because of it. But she never complains. Although tonight she did say “I didn’t know that Sonic had ice cream.” We explained that that was what all of us were eating but as soon as you try to tell her she jumps right back to “I hate Sonic and won’t discuss it.” So that is that.
I never got a chance to relax for the rest of the afternoon. Madeline, Liesl and Garrett kept playing Back to the Future: The Game, what a huge winner that has turned out to be. That was our top game that we played in Nicaragua and now it is the most popular one since our return to Texas. It is looking like it might get a full two play throughs in a three month period. A first for our gaming library. I was stuck making food, one item after another, or trying to get kids ready or cleaning or whatever. Emily took a nap. Everyone else watched the game.
At five we left to go up to Dickinson to meet up with everyone to go to the Festival of Lights, there. You park along the highway and take a school bus over to the park where the lights are set up. The family goes every year but this was my first year going. Christmas light displays are not my thing. Turns out, they are not Luciana’s either. She was miserable the entire time and needing me to carry her the whole time that we were there which was exhausting and everything hurt by the time that we were done. Liesl did a bit better.
After we were done with the lights and got back to our cars the Millers Family took the Chevy Spark, went to Panda Express and picked up a small dinner for Liesl and me and returned home. Luciana was totally passed out by the time that we got back to the condo.
We watched one episode of “The Brady Bunch” while we ate dinner and got Luciana to bed while that was on. She went to bed happily snuggling her new panda bear. Liesl took her snow leopard and climbed into our bed for a while where she took the snow leopard and watched shows on her iPad with it just like it was seeing the shows for the first time. It was adorable.
Dominica and I stayed up a little bit and watched the first episode of “Webster”. I have not seen that show in reruns, ever. My only time having seen it was the first time that it aired so I would have not seen this episode since 1983! Thirty two years later.
Dominica has very bad heartburn tonight. She was unable to sleep for a long time. I ended up going to bed with her still up for a change.