Sheep Guarding Llama

Wednesday.  Our one day at home between traveling.  Just arrived by car from Missouri last night, and tomorrow morning I leave for California.  This is it, the one day at home in a month.

The girls have their homeschool book club event at the Carrollton Public Library today, that was the big thing that we wanted to be sure that we made it back for.  That was about one that they went there.  They had a good time and got new books for next month.  Liesl is reading “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White, now.

After book club they were invited to go to the playground with some friends, which they did for a while and had a really nice time.  This homeschool club is great for them.

After the playground, the girls set up in the living room with one of those “dig for dinosaur bones” kits.  They went through the entire thing this afternoon.

Got all packed up this evening and went to bed as early as I could muster.  Long day of traveling tomorrow.

Tuesday. We started the day at Paul’s house.  I woke up just early enough to see him off to work.  Dominica and the girls were still asleep.

Everyone got up and we were on the road at a decent time this morning, probably around ten.  Paul stopped back to lock up the house as we left, so everyone got to say goodbye before we got onto the road.

Immediately upon leaving Cuba, Missouri we were met with some of the worst winds that I have ever encountered while driving.  It was completely insane.  It was all that I could do to hold the car on the road as we went down the highway and it just kept going and going.

It was a terrible drive.  We made bad time and it was terribly fatiguing.  We had to cut south and drive through Arkansas in the hopes of reducing the wind a little, which might have helped, but we really can’t tell.  The wind continued through Oklahoma.  So I had to fight it the entire day, there was really no relief.

So our drive was long and tiring.  We were very glad to finally get back home to Dallas this evening.

We had a lot of unpacking to do when we arrived.  First, though, we had to inspect the house and see how bad things are with us having been gone for so long and there having been so much range.  We were amazed to find that there was no visible water damage or anything.  We half expected to find the house was not even standing any longer, but things were just fine!  It’s a bit of a miracle.

So we took an hour and unloaded the Quest in the dark.  It’s all empty except for the dresser now which we will get tomorrow.

A short evening, some food, and time for some sleep.

 

Monday.  We had to get up and really get to packing the car this morning.  There was so much to do.  It took until noon to get the car fully packed for the drive.  And boy is it packed.  Every available space has been taken up.  The car is visible weighted down, this is going to be a very long drive.

So about noon we said our goodbyes to dad and got the drive underway.  We are heading out towards Cleveland and then down across Ohio and out to Cuba, Missouri where we will be staying with Paul tonight, if we ever get there.

The drive today was super easy and no problem at all.  We were very late getting started, but it never felt like a day of driving.  By the time that we got to Cuba, around two in the morning, I wasn’t even feeling like I’d driven much and could easily have continued on (we’d find out tomorrow that we wish that we had, driving it tonight would have been much easier.)

The southbound trip is better for us, we get the big day of driving done up front and have a short second day.  Cuba is a couple hours on the Texas side of the trip.

We got to spend a little time with Paul.  He had napped before we got there so we were not keeping him up all night.  We hung out for maybe an hour.  Just Dominica and I stayed up.  Luciana never even saw Paul, she made me carry her in and put her straight to bed the instant that we arrived.  She was asleep the moment her head in the pillow.  Liesl walked in and said hello, but got ready for bed and was asleep very quickly.

Sunday.  Today was even more storage unit fun than yesterday!

Dominica made breakfast this morning.  The girls were up early and got right to playing with their living room full of Playmobile stuff that we finally found in the storage unit.  They are so happy about that.  Playmobile has always been amongst their favourite toy items and they have missed so much of it.  Some of this has been in storage for so long that they can barely remember that they had it, even Liesl struggles to remember it!

Dominica and I worked hard in the storage unit all morning.  So much to be done.  It was super productive, though.  We had a good process going and just worked through box after box, one after another.  Good exercise, but we are getting worn out pretty quickly.  We really want to make it through the entire unit before we leave.  The more we go through, the more we know what is there, the better we can label it.  We are re-boxing everything more condensed and donating stuff to the Leicester rummage sale like crazy.  We have a huge pile for them in the middle of the barn.

We are getting more and more space to maneuver in the storage unit, which is good.  It gets easier as we go, in some ways.  But in others, I am getting to boxes stored higher and farther away from the door.

We’ve got the kids working hard going through boxes of toys and dress up clothes figuring out what they want to keep, what gets stored, what is staying at grandpa’s house, what is coming with us, what is getting donated, what fits, what doesn’t, etc.  We are keeping them busy.

Sharon and Leo stopped by and go another car load of donation stuff from the barn.  It is going to take them many car trips to get all of it, but nothing is so large as to require a truck.

We worked till about midnight and just barely made it to the very last box.  We packed some of the car tonight, including the well and getting the furniture in that we are taking.    But we have a lot left to do tomorrow in the daylight, too.  So we will not be getting onto the road as early as we had been hoping.

We spoke to Paul today and know that he is going to be home tomorrow night.  We we are making for Cuba, Missouri and will be spending the night there.

The one thing that we had lost and have been looking, very hard, for in all of these boxes is our Dungeons and Dragons dice.  We know that we had it when we packed up and left Texas in 2013, but we have no idea where they could be.  It turned out to be in the very bottom, of the very last box that I decided to give one last look into, just before we started repacking the storage unit to lock it up!  Four days of storage unit work, and we find it in the last five minutes.  Totally crazy.

Saturday. Now that the weather is not too bad, it is time to dig through the storage unit in the barn.  That is our job for today.  There is so much to go through!  We got enough out last time that we did this, though, that we can at least maneuver around in there and with each box that we get out the whole thing gets easier and easier.

We started the day going up to Geneseo to run errands and get “breakfast”.  It took till almost noon to get everyone awake, dressed and out of the house.

First stop was our bank in Geneseo.  That took almost an hour, but we were able to get the stuff done that we needed to do.  We should have done that a week ago, but whatever, it is done.  It has taken nearly a year to get to that.  After we were done there at one o’clock it was over to the tractor store for dad to grab something, then to Mae’s for lunch.

Dominica and I got Trash Plates, their garbage plates, which veggie burgers which were very good.  The girls got pancakes.  Dad got a cheeseburger.  It was a nice lunch.

While we were there we make plans with Tricia and Kathy to get dinner and drinks this evening out in Farmington at seven.

So from Geneseo we went back to the Ralstons’ for just a little bit to drop off some paperwork and pick up a few things like a new DECT Yealink office phone for me.  The really big item is a “new” Apple iPhone 6+ for Luciana.  She has been the only one without a phone now for almost two years and while has been patient to wait for one, she has also been very much looking forward to getting one.  So this is really great for her that there is an essentially never used, very new and modern iPhone for her to use right away.  She was so excited when she found out that we were getting it.  Now we all have them.  Our current compliment is an iPhone 7+ for me, Dominica has the iPhone 6, Liesl has the iPhone 5S, and Luciana has the iPhone 6+.  Liesl said that she preferred to stay with her smaller 5S instead of “upgrading” to the 6+ which is the same size as mine, which is huge.

After stopping at the Ralstons’ we went back to dad’s house and got straight to work down in the barn in the storage unit.  So much to do.  We are figuring out which things need to go with us back down to Texas in this load, and which things are being donated to the Leicester rummage sale that is happening soon, and what is going to be used at dad’s or kept in the storage unit for another season.

This is our first chance to really go box by box and evaluate what is down there.  It is a lot of work, nothing is clearly labeled and we don’t have very good memories of a lot of it.  We are finding all kinds of stuff.  Some good discoveries, some whole piles of things that should never have been stored at all.

We didn’t have nearly as long to work in the barn as we had expected today.  It was almost three when we got started and we needed to wrap up around five to be able to get ready to go meet Tricia and Kathy for drinks.  But we got a good start on it all.

We showered and I did a little posting and at six we got on the road to drive out to Farmington.  It’s just over an hour to get to the Finger Lakes Casino where we were meeting.  The girls are spending the evening with grandpa.  They will have a good time.

The drive was fine, the snow is not so bad today.  This was our first time going to the Finger Lakes Casino, not the kind of place that we would ever volunteer to go to on our own, not the kind of place that it would ever occur to us to even go to.  Such a strange venue, but it is just minutes from their house so very convenient for them.

The place is larger than I would have guessed and quite odd.  It’s just a bunch of simple video games with people who look like zombies mindlessly hitting buttons.  Looks horrendous when you walk inside.  Just bright lights and dazed people.

We went to the bar and restaurant called Remedy.  It was surprisingly busy, but there was a nice “booth” with great chairs in the back corner that was perfect.  Unfortunately a band, a good band but a loud one, played all evening starting right after we arrived so we had to shout over them to be able to hear each other.  An amazingly large number of people were out on the dance floor, though.  I couldn’t believe it.

The customer service was pretty awful.  Kathy and I went up to get drinks and the bartender actively ignored us and was pretty rude when we finally managed to order.  Took over half an hour to get simple drinks at a bar that was not all that busy.  I gave up on ordering food as there was no way to do that.

Eventually we figured out that other tables had servers, just not us.  None would come near us.  We worked really hard for two hours to get the server’s attention that was handling the tables next to ours but she wouldn’t acknowledge us for anything.  She worked so hard to never make full eye contact, it was like we were lepers.  Finally, after two hours of no service, I walked to a different area and asked a guy bussing tables if we were in some kind of “no service” section, he said someone should have helped us and helped us himself.  He was great and Dominica and I got fish fry garbage plates (yes, our second garbage plates for the day) and they were amazing, and only eleven dollars!  Overall the place was low cost and the quality was decent, but other than the one waiter who was so obliging, the overall customer service was ridiculously bad.

We had a great time hanging out with Kathy and Tricia and were heading home just after eleven.  We got back to dad’s after midnight and our Liesl was already asleep, as was dad, and Luciana was the only one awake.  She was in bed watching videos.  She talked to us for a little bit but was off to bed shortly after we got home.

I did maybe thirty minutes of work and got off to bed myself.  Tomorrow is an all storage unit day.  That is going to be exhausting.  Storage unit and packing the car, we have to be all ready to leave on Monday morning.