Holiday family visit
We're back, just in time for the end of the year! As expected, it turned out that the stress about traveling with all the gifts was mostly unwarranted--it was a bit of a hassle carrying around the extra luggage, but there weren't really any issues getting it on and off trains and buses. Not that the trip was stress-free, mind you. In fact, when the conductor told us we chose the wrong dates to travel, he was super duper right. And not just that everybody was doing their holiday traveling--it's annoying, but we've traveled on busy days before.
The problem was that there was construction or something going on at the main travel hub station, so the trip is normally a train, a bus, and a train, but for these very special dates, the trip was a train, a bus, another bus, and a train. Even that wouldn't have been so much of an issue if the first train hadn't been held up for almost two hours. We knew we were going to spend a lot of time sitting, but we did not expect to spend so much time sitting on an unmoving train. And of course, since it was the first train, all our other connections were running late for the rest of the day.
Nevertheless, we made it safely to our destination, with all of our luggage intact! And then we enjoyed a few nice, laid-back days with our family. Because we went after Christmas, all of the super exciting chaos had settled, everybody was tired, and most of the time was spent chatting with our sisters or staring at devices or playing video games with nephews. The children all mostly got along, too, which was very nice.
Like, we played MarioKart with Gilderoy and Chase, and Gilderoy had said it would be a bad idea to play with him, because he would destroy everyone. Athena was like, "Oh, really? Then I guess you won't mind if I don't hold back." And she did actually beat him most of the time, but he was totally cool with it. And Chase kept playing, even though he kept ending up in the lower ranks. He was playing as Kamek, and sometimes when he'd lose, he'd be like, "Aww, now Kamek's gonna be sad." He didn't enjoy hovering around sixth place, but he was a very good sport about it.
The sweetest was when... Okay, so the boys were very particular about whose controller was second player and whose was third (Athena got to be first player, period). One time Chase beat Gilderoy to second player, so Athena said, "Well, you may be second player, but Gilderoy's the one who will probably be first place." (She wasn't entirely exaggerating; he had beaten her a few times already.) And instead of getting a swelled head about it, he goes, "Wow, Aunt Athena, that's a really nice thing to say!" It was very cute.
We also played some Super Mario Bros. Wonder, of course. Normally we played it on Gilderoy or Chase's Switch, but once or twice we used Athena's, where the game language is set to Japanese, while the flowers are set to speak French. Chase wanted to change things up even more, so he asked that she change the flowers to speak Spanish. Gilderoy wanted to know why Athena hates English. We didn't give him a satisfactory answer, so he spent a fair chunk of our visit trying to convince us that the flowers' English voice was great. It's cute that he's so devoted, but (and this is what we should have said to Gilderoy) it just sounds like the actor is more focused on doing a voice than on playing a flower (or several flowers, as the case may be). That's actually a problem we've found in most American voice acting these days, and that's why we hate English.
Another highlight of the trip, for us, is that Grawp remembered that Pokemon exists, so Athena got to do some trading with him. He traded her a Magikarp egg, because he's obsessed with Magikarp. XD
Yesterday, we boarded the train back to the bus back to the other bus back to the train back home. Fortunately, that trip didn't have nearly as many delays, so the journey was relatively short (although there was a glitch with my Uber app that had us worried for some minutes about whether or not we'd make it home from the train station). We still had some time before bedtime, so we watched the latest episode of Percy Jackson, and one of the new episodes of Dragons of Wonderhatch.
Then I picked up my iPad to do my Duolingo, and that's when I saw the notification from our informant, telling us that the Miraculous World: Paris special was on Disney+YourSoul already! What! We had no idea! And there we were, watching Percy Jackson like a couple of saps, when we could have been watching new Miraculous, and stupid Disney+ didn't even tell us!? When we've been watching Miraculous on endless loop!? Why, Disney+!? WHY!?
So we stayed up an extra hour and watched it. It was the only solution. Now we have seen it three times, and balance has been restored. And oh my goodness, I think I have a lot to say about that special, but that's going to have to wait for another post. I will say this: I liked it the first time, but I think I've liked it more every time we watched it.
Today I'm thankful for making it safely to visit our family, having a nice time visiting with everyone, the Christmas gifts also making it safely to their destinations, everyone liking what they got, and getting to watch the Miraculous World: Paris special.
The problem was that there was construction or something going on at the main travel hub station, so the trip is normally a train, a bus, and a train, but for these very special dates, the trip was a train, a bus, another bus, and a train. Even that wouldn't have been so much of an issue if the first train hadn't been held up for almost two hours. We knew we were going to spend a lot of time sitting, but we did not expect to spend so much time sitting on an unmoving train. And of course, since it was the first train, all our other connections were running late for the rest of the day.
Nevertheless, we made it safely to our destination, with all of our luggage intact! And then we enjoyed a few nice, laid-back days with our family. Because we went after Christmas, all of the super exciting chaos had settled, everybody was tired, and most of the time was spent chatting with our sisters or staring at devices or playing video games with nephews. The children all mostly got along, too, which was very nice.
Like, we played MarioKart with Gilderoy and Chase, and Gilderoy had said it would be a bad idea to play with him, because he would destroy everyone. Athena was like, "Oh, really? Then I guess you won't mind if I don't hold back." And she did actually beat him most of the time, but he was totally cool with it. And Chase kept playing, even though he kept ending up in the lower ranks. He was playing as Kamek, and sometimes when he'd lose, he'd be like, "Aww, now Kamek's gonna be sad." He didn't enjoy hovering around sixth place, but he was a very good sport about it.
The sweetest was when... Okay, so the boys were very particular about whose controller was second player and whose was third (Athena got to be first player, period). One time Chase beat Gilderoy to second player, so Athena said, "Well, you may be second player, but Gilderoy's the one who will probably be first place." (She wasn't entirely exaggerating; he had beaten her a few times already.) And instead of getting a swelled head about it, he goes, "Wow, Aunt Athena, that's a really nice thing to say!" It was very cute.
We also played some Super Mario Bros. Wonder, of course. Normally we played it on Gilderoy or Chase's Switch, but once or twice we used Athena's, where the game language is set to Japanese, while the flowers are set to speak French. Chase wanted to change things up even more, so he asked that she change the flowers to speak Spanish. Gilderoy wanted to know why Athena hates English. We didn't give him a satisfactory answer, so he spent a fair chunk of our visit trying to convince us that the flowers' English voice was great. It's cute that he's so devoted, but (and this is what we should have said to Gilderoy) it just sounds like the actor is more focused on doing a voice than on playing a flower (or several flowers, as the case may be). That's actually a problem we've found in most American voice acting these days, and that's why we hate English.
Another highlight of the trip, for us, is that Grawp remembered that Pokemon exists, so Athena got to do some trading with him. He traded her a Magikarp egg, because he's obsessed with Magikarp. XD
Yesterday, we boarded the train back to the bus back to the other bus back to the train back home. Fortunately, that trip didn't have nearly as many delays, so the journey was relatively short (although there was a glitch with my Uber app that had us worried for some minutes about whether or not we'd make it home from the train station). We still had some time before bedtime, so we watched the latest episode of Percy Jackson, and one of the new episodes of Dragons of Wonderhatch.
Then I picked up my iPad to do my Duolingo, and that's when I saw the notification from our informant, telling us that the Miraculous World: Paris special was on Disney+YourSoul already! What! We had no idea! And there we were, watching Percy Jackson like a couple of saps, when we could have been watching new Miraculous, and stupid Disney+ didn't even tell us!? When we've been watching Miraculous on endless loop!? Why, Disney+!? WHY!?
So we stayed up an extra hour and watched it. It was the only solution. Now we have seen it three times, and balance has been restored. And oh my goodness, I think I have a lot to say about that special, but that's going to have to wait for another post. I will say this: I liked it the first time, but I think I've liked it more every time we watched it.
Today I'm thankful for making it safely to visit our family, having a nice time visiting with everyone, the Christmas gifts also making it safely to their destinations, everyone liking what they got, and getting to watch the Miraculous World: Paris special.