My Week Off - the sequel

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Hello everyone. I'm not feeling too well today. Gave myself heat stroke yesterday. I did have an absolutely amazing day, though. In my last post, I'd got to Thursday as that was when I wrote it. Thursday - Cousins (Blue, J, and BabyCousin) went swimming and we met up with them after that. We had some lunch at a cafe in the park then we all went to see my in-laws. They'd briefly seen them earlier in the week but this was their proper time with them. Blue hadn't seen this side of the family since she was little, and J and BabyCousin hadn't met them before. It was all good, though. We were there for supporting as was our daughter (C) and her family (C and Blue grew up knowing each other as cousins). We had some time with everyone at the in-laws', playing in the garden with the little ones. Mini interacted well, which C noticed. She said it was nice to see because he'd not really done that before. Early evening, we (that's me, D, Midi and Mini) took the cousins to a local pub for dinner. The food was not bad but service could have been better. It was nice to go out with the cousins, though. Friday - I thought the girls were going to meet up with each other at a park but Blue was having a bit of a wobble with her mental health. I suggested that I take her for some retail therapy while Midi took J and BabyCousin out for lunch. Cousins decided to go for a walk around where they were staying, which did them good especially as there's a lovely quiet pond and nature area nearby. Midi and I played Scrabble and then went to meet the cousins. The five of us ended up going into the city, had some lunch, did some shoe shopping, and came home. Saturday - as much as I've loved spending time with everyone, this was my favourite day. I went to the zoo! C and T had agreed to let us have our three granddaughters for a day so they could do some shopping in the big city. This was that day. D, Midi, Mini, and I met them in the big city and took the three little ones. We had to then get another train and a bus to the zoo. It was such a special day, not just because of it being a lovely family day at the zoo but because it was our first real day of being grandparents. We'd spent time with them, of course, but always with at least one of their parents. It meant a lot to us that C and T trusted us with them, especially as we only get to see them about once a year. Baby1 loved the giraffes, which have always been her favourite. Baby2's favourite animal is elephant but they don't have any of those. We're not sure of Baby3's favourite, but she seemed fascinated by giant turtles and with everything in the reptile house. She also loved the Arctic fox, and I'm sure she wanted to climb in with the meerkats! We saw lots of animals, had lunch, the girls played in the play area where there were free-roaming peacocks. Then I let the girls choose something from the gift shop and got them an ice-cream. Baby1 said she'd like to go on the fairground rides at the end but understood when I said no because we were about to do something else. If it wasn't for having to get trains and things back, I'd probably have let her go on the rides. The girls were amazing. C had asked if we'd be alright with all of them, but they were so well-behaved. When we got them back, C and T asked how they'd been so we said they had been brilliant. There were a couple of incidents - one that Baby3 was being fussy about going in her pushchair because she wanted to be carried (but she was fine and went to sleep after lunch), the other was our fault because we dropped a toy we'd bought for Baby2. It fell under the train as we were getting on. Baby2 was very upset and then got upset a few times when she said she wanted the toy and we had to explain again that it wasn't there. We think she might be autistic, and she's only 4, so not sure if she could understand that the toy wasn't where she'd put it. She was fine other than that, though, and we managed to distract her. I've ordered another toy the same to be delivered to her tomorrow. After the zoo, my big nephew fetched me, D, Midi, and Mini from the in-laws'. He dropped us off at my sister Dory's. D and Mini went straight home but Midi and I went to Dory's for a bit. It was her Bir the day before but she had a bit of a do on the Saturday. We didn't stay long as I wasn't feeling too good. Midi popped back round to Dory as we hadn't yet taken her birthday present so he did that. Sunday - that's today. I'm feeling a little better. All our visitors have gone back to their homes. Not sure when we'll see the girls next but Midi will be back at the end of term. We're hoping that our youngest daughter will be able to visit then as we didn't include her this time. We thought it would be too much for everyone, and it will be nice to be able to just do grown-up things with her. The picture is of Midi holding Baby3. I realised that we have one of Midi with 3 and 1 but not with Baby2 That's been my week. How have you been?