Double Stroller!!!

A few months ago, Tami met a very nice lady and her sister who gave us a double stroller that they didn't have use for anymore. We'd kept it in storage until today, when we decided get it out, clean it up and take it out for a spin. And it was quite a spin.

There is a religious festival here this month and every night about 8 p.m. they have a special meal. We decided to go with some friends of ours to one of the touristy areas in our city to eat. We got Zeke and Kaiyah in the stroller, and they were very cute, and it was easy to push around.

We got out to the place around 6:30 and found a restaurant with a spare table (there weren't many).

Kaiyah slept in the back of the stroller for awhile.

Eventually our food came and we waited for the time to eat.

It finally did, so we, along with everyone else, started eating. Pardon this next picture. Dan was talking.

After we ate, we walked around a little and ate some cotton candy and other sweet stuff.

A while later, we headed home. Tami was holding Kaiyah, so one of Zeke's friends got to ride in the stroller with him. They were both full of sugar and had a lot of fun the whole way home.

Unfortunately, sometime during the night, the rubber came off of one of the back tires. We couldn't find that one. As we were headed home, the other one came off and we managed to save it. The back of it was already being propped up with a stretch cord, so it's looking like the first adventure in the double stroller will be its last. Alas!

Lots of Public Transport...

We've talked about all the different transport in our city so here are a few pictures of some we were on today. It starts like this:

First, we needed to take Zeke to preschool, so we all piled on a mini-bus that goes pretty close to the school.

Second, we needed a new adapter cord for our computer, and we had heard of a place on the other side of town with lots of computer stuff, so we hopped on a train to go to the water's edge on our side of town.

Disclaimer: This isn't at all like the train we ride. This was a model outside the train station. The train we ride looks like the tramway (see below) but much older.

Third, we got on a boat to go to the other side where they sell computer cords. We got our cord quickly and were back on a boat in no time. After the boat, we got back on the train to get Zeke. After we got Zeke, we got another mini-bus to come back home. Tami got off at home with the kids.

Fourth, Dan continued on the mini-bus to a larger bus stop, where he boarded a full size city bus in order to go to a dentist to get a tooth fixed.

Fifth, the bus took Dan to a metro where he would ride one stop to get to the dentist's office. He didn't get a picture of the metro, either, but this is it's sign. The metro itself looks kind of like the tramway (see below) but underground.

Sixth, after the dental appointment, Dan walked back to the bus station (because it wasn't really that far) and got on a bus headed in the direction of our apartments. The bus took Dan to a tramway stop, where Dan got on his sixth mode of transport for the day and finally managed to get back. It's good to be home!

My day . . .

I was just typing an email to my friend Dana telling her about my day, and I decided to copy this story over onto our blog. So, here it goes:

"Today I had language study and Dan had work and Zeke had preschool. So, I had to take Kaiyah to language with me. It takes me about 1 ½ hours on the bus to get to my tutor’s home, and then another 1 ½ hours to get back. Then I had to go straight to the preschool to pick Zeke up, which added another 30 minutes or so. I got there just in time. Then I had to walk with 2 kids, one stroller and 2 bags ½ a mile or so to where I catch the public vans. I had to pile all our junk onto the van and ride the 30 minutes home (it’s not that far, it just takes awhile with all the stopping and stuff). All the way home Zeke said "Zeke drive. Zeke drive." I said, "No you have to be grown to drive." So then it was "Zeke grown, Zeke grown." When we finally got close to home I was throwing all our junk out of the van trying to gather up all my children and get them off etc. At this point Zeke didn’t want to ride in the stroller so I had the bags in the stroller, Kaiyah in her pack, and Zeke was helping me to push the stroller. I see a car began backing up, swinging from the road right into my sidewalk (now granted, just as many cars think they have a right to the sidewalk as people.) I figured surely he sees me and I couldn’t really jerk out of the way without loosing Zeke. So I just stood there and the car kept coming! When it bumped into the stroller I finally yelled and they stopped. No damage done. After I gave them a dirty look and made sure they saw Zeke they apologized! Any-who, that was my excitement of the day!"

Just a day in the life of Tami . . .

Not as young as I used to be...

So, when I was in college, as I worked with children, one of my favorite things to do was to pick them up and twirl them around. They liked it, too. They would run up to me and yell, Mr. Dan, twirl me, twirl me!" And I would for at least half an hour every Monday afternoon.

So, the other day, I saw Tami twirling Zeke around and I thought, 'I guess he is getting big enough to do that.' The next day, I picked Zeke up under his arms and began to twirl him in circles. He thought it was fun and wanted me to do it some more. So I picked him up again and started doing it. He and I were both walking a little funnily afterwards, but about a minute later, he was fine. I, on the other hand, had a bellyache for the rest of the day. This happened to me once before, too, when I lived in Brazil and rode the teacups with Anna Brawner, who was 5 at the time. Yeah, the teacups!! Oh well! I guess I'm just not as young as I used to be.