I had to be up at five this morning. Not fun after the exhausting marathon of the Christmas holidays. I am worn out. My morning was easy, thank goodness. I’m not that good at getting so little sleep. Liesl had been feeling sick last night, soar throat mostly, and asked if she could sleep with me. So we had camped out on the floor upstairs last night as it was. Dominica got the air mattress to herself and Luciana just slept on the couch with the cousins as they often do.
Paul and I have to head back up to Dallas this evening. My week starting Friday morning is going to be crazy as I am covering for Allen who is having surgery. So I have to be back and caught up before then. And Paul has a flight in the wee hours of Friday morning and needs to get back in time to get ready to go. So we really have no choice, we have to head back up tonight to be able to do everything that needs to be done.
It was a busy day, for sure. Today is the last day for the girls to pick out some stuff on Steam, too, as the Steam Sale will likely be over by the time that they see me again to sit down with them and figure out what they want to get.
Liesl contemplated all day on her order. Both girls have $30 in Steam Gift Cards from Christmas and want to stock up now while the sale is on. Liesl finally decided on Sonic Forces (a Sonic the Hedgehog platformer that is a new release and she has been wanting), Cluedo (Clue the board game, to play online with her cousins), The Little Acre (which just looks like a perfect adventure game for her), The Long Dark (a brutal survival game that she and Dominica have been interested in for a long time), and The Flame in the Flood (a survival game that I had shown her and she really liked the look of.)
Luciana decided on Raft (an online, multiplayer survival game that she has been asking for for months) and Yooka-Laylee (a Nintendo 64 style, but new, 3D platformer.) She picked the later because it looked like something that she and Liesl can play together. I also grabbed Poi because it was so cheap and looked like a Liesl style game.
Garrett bought Slime Rancher today and Ciana taught him how to play. They did that much of the afternoon.
Francesca spent the day scouring the “under a dollar” titles on Steam.
Garrett bought the $32 (even on sale) Farming Simulator 2019 today. Francesca had mentioned earlier in the day what a bad game that would be and made sure that it wasn’t on his wishlist so that he wouldn’t think to try to buy it. And then he did anyway. That’s the most expensive game any of us have bought in so long, and it’s not even a game but just doing farm work without getting any food out of it. He even tried playing it and couldn’t figure out what to do, it is so hard (because it’s an actual simulation of someone driving farm implements.) Luckily Steam has a refund process that is no hassle. He was in for it if they hadn’t given the money back. The idea of letting the kids have their own Steam money is so that they learn about money. And going for the most expensive purchase ever, for a thing he didn’t even know what it was, didn’t work out.
Liesl, Madeline, and Dominica’s dad went out to the movies this afternoon, too. I do not know what they want to see.
Dominica did most of my packing today. Paul packed up the truck.
We decided to have dinner with the family before we left. This was my first meal of the day, so I was pretty hungry. We ate around six and were finally on the road just after seven. Rachel was leaving Austin and heading to the house at about the same time.
We ended up hitting rain even while we were still loading the truck. Then we hit really heavy rain, and a lot of hydroplaning, as we drove north. We had rain most of the drive. It was not fun.
It was nearly one in the morning when we got to the house. Rachel had gotten there around ten thirty and was cleaning. Jaiden was there too, for some reason. That did not go over well.
It had been raining and we found that a lot of rain and leaked in above the bar again. A lot of new damage there now. And while we were gone, another panel appears to have blown off of the house! And the ladder fell over and nearly came through the glass doors in the kitchen.
Rachel and I opened a box of wine and watched two episodes of The Haunting of Hill House and have now completed episode five. It’s gotten decently scary now, enough that Rachel was having nightmares.
It is great to be back in my own bed. It is so comfortable!