April 24, 2012: Finalized Plans for Travel to New York

We finally got our schedule today and we now know exactly when we are leaving for New York.  Instead of leaving the weekend before we need to be up there we are actually leaving at the last possible second, the Wednesday evening before the Friday wedding, and driving like crazy and, if all goes well, arriving at dad’s house 24 hours before the wedding itself.  We will get there, probably stay up for about two hours as we will be unable to sleep at that point, crash and sleep a really long time, then get up and head to the wedding.  It is going to be one packed weekend.

From the wedding we will go back to dad’s, sleep, get up and head immediately to the airport to catch our flight from Rochester to JFK and then catch our flight from JFK to Heathrow.  Then immediately hop a train from London to Nottingham.  What a week that is going to be.  We are going to be seriously exhausted by the time that we get to Nottingham.  We will have nothing left at that point.

Weather was great today.  I was up early this morning and got some work done at home before going into the office.  I had to come home a bit longer than usual today so that I could watch the kids while Dominica was out running some errands.

After work I drove down to Grand Prairie to pick up Stacey Rodgers who was able to get away to join us for dinner at Brookhaven tonight.  She has not had a chance to meet Dominica and the girls yet.  Traffic was horrendous.  It took me an hour and a half to make the normally fifteen minute journey down to Grand Prairie to pick her up at the Hampton Inn.  It worked out “well” because she had missed her first shuttle and the second one was stuck in traffic.  She had just enough time to run in, change and run back out as I pulled in.  So the timing ended up not being too bad.

Traffic was fine going the other direction up to Brookhaven.  We were there in fifteen minutes, I would guess.  Dominica and the girls had been there waiting for a bit but just sat in the car waiting for us to arrive.

The weather was so gorgeous tonight, and Stacey is about to have to head back to cold Rochester and the snow, so we sat outside at Brookhaven.  It was great and it is really nice for the kids to be outside because they can make more noise, walk around and whatever without it really being a problem at all.  Dominica and I had the kitchen make us fish tacos tonight – we were just in the mood.

After dinner we sat around one of the fire pits for a while.  Liesl went and played in the bounce house for a bit and made a new friend.  She was horribly upset (see yesterday’s post) when her new friend had to leave because she thought that she would never get to see her, ever again.  We are pretty sure that they will see each other again as kids’ night at the country club is all about running into the same people over and over again.  Liesl was so happy, though, to come and tell us about how she made a new friend.  It was darling.  She is growing up so fast.

Luciana spent much of the evening tricking us by acting like she wanted to walk and then suddenly dropping and crawling away.

We hung out until it was quite dark.  Then Dominica took the kids home and I took Stacey back down to Grand Prairie.  It is funny that in three weeks we will be closer to Stacey in New York than we are to her here.  Stacey and I hung out until twenty till eleven which I knew was the very last moment so that I could still make it to the YogurtZone on MacArthur in Las Colinas to pick up frozen yogurt for Dominica and I.  So we said goodbye and I ran up to Las Colinas.

I came home at a quarter after eleven with frozen yogurt.  Both girls were already asleep.  Liesl had actually fallen asleep in the car on the way home.  Dominica and I ate our yogurt and watched some more House Hunters International.

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