We leave Texas in forty-eight hours and we leave for Europe itself from New York in five days. Vacationitis is now in effect one hundred percent.
I got up at a quarter after six this morning so that I could get some work done. Liesl was up just minutes after me. She popped into my office at half past six and asked me to set her up with a My Little Pony show and chocolate milk (Pediasure.) Her morning routine, but not normally this early. It was still dark out. Every morning she finds us, has us set up whatever show she was watching just before going to bed, bring out her Dora pillow and her pink polka dot blanket and set up on the couch in the playroom with her chocolate milk. This is how she starts her day.
Over the last several weeks her thing has been making tents from blankets. She loves to have a tent over her bed, tent over the couch, etc. Yesterday she decided that she wanted a “cave” instead (basically a tent with her head poking out.) So I have to set her up with that so that she can watch her shows as well.
I went in to Medifast this morning at my usual nine o’clock and did my final check in before leaving for Europe. As of today I am also out of transition and into my “stay fit” cycle where, in theory, I am back to eating real food and being “normal” from here on out. The goal is to maintain my current weight, hopefully, forever. They are excited about my trip and will be following along on Kidding Around Europe. Dominica has been working on some new posts for there too. The big one will be about all of the luggage and how she is managing to squeeze everything in there.
I’ve gotten a Europe 2012 Flickr Set set up now where all of the raw pictures from our trip will be being uploaded as we go. Pretty much empty right now, but in theory that will be jam packed with content very soon.
Dominica spent a bit of time this weekend getting iPads and iPods ready for the trip. Books and music loaded, movies to watch. We are ready. There is going to be a lot of time spent on planes and trains. Keeping the girls, and ourselves, occupied is going to be tough.
Today was slow at the office. I was thankful for that. My head is swimming with all of the things that we need to do before we leave. It is starting to feel like a panic. I am starting to have a hard time concentrating or focusing simply due to the massive volume of things demanding our attention.
I had to run to the post office this afternoon to send out the Droid X that has to be returned to Verizon. Quite honestly, we are glad to be rid of it. We never liked the phone and we don’t want it cluttering up the house like our old Palm 700p and BlackBerry Tour do. Even Dominica’s old BlackBerry Pearl won’t go away and Liesl still plays with it from time to time and Luciana is starting to play with it. Very soon, I suspect, they will be playing with an HTC Droid Incredible 2.
The whole afternoon was really slow at work. I remembered to submit my timesheets – always a concern with me. Very critical since we will be out of the country and very dependent on the regular flow of income while we are away. I did some bill paying too. Want to get that all taken care of before we are traveling.
It is Monday so the country club is closed. So our routine has been for me to pick up food on the way home to save time. We are pretty much out of food at the house and we do not want to buy any more since we will be leaving and anything that is in the house will spoil while we are gone. So we have already gone through and pretty much eaten everything and now have to eat out for all of our meals.
So I called into Rockfish and ordered dinner before leaving the office. I brought home dinner and Dominica had some Rick Steves lined up and ready to go when I arrived. We watched his European travel tips to make sure that we had thought of everything possible.
My new laptop case arrived today. It is pretty cool. I will try to post some pictures tomorrow – both of it and of the new laptop too.
Tonight was busy between prep work and just general work needing my attention. So much to do, so little time. I expect to be home tomorrow and in the office on Wednesday. So pretty much everything has to be done tomorrow. Wednesday is purely a “pack the car” day.