Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is a busy one for us as we work to get Dominica ready for her travels to the US.  It is Monday.  We got up this morning and first thing Dominica and I walked down to the big grocery store down the hill so that we could stock up on things that I will need while Dominica is gone so that I can feed the kids.  We got extra supplies in the hopes that I would not need to return, although that might be a long shot.

On the way to the grocery store we stopped at the bus station and bought Dominica her ticket for the trip today.  Less than eight Euros to go from Noto all of the way to the airport in Catania.  That’s an important note about this region – cheap and simple transportation all of the way up to the main airport in the region.  That’s not something that you would get back in the States.  Less than ten dollars and you can just get on a nice, mostly empty, comfortable bus and in an hour and a half you are several cities away right at the airport.  Perfect.  There is a train that goes up there, too.

We stopped and got some espresso before continuing down, as well.

That was a major trip this morning and much of it was spent with Dominica trying to deal with getting checked into her flights.  Her Vueling flights worked without a problem.  But British Airways could not check her in due to glitches in their online system and their customer support was not able to help all day.  Because Dominica gets so sick when flying being able to check in early and knowing that she has an aisle seat is a really big deal for her and helps a lot to keep her anxiety to a minimum.  So she worried about that all day.

We got home and really only had about three hours before it was time for Dominica to get on the bus.  So I worked while I could and Dominica verified packing and stuff.  She has been super successful at getting a full fifty pounds of stuff that we “no longer need” with us in Italy packed up and ready to go back to the US.  That is going to make things so much easier for when we are traveling around.  Sadly, one of the things going back with her is the nVidia Shield, we just have not found time to use it and it is too big and bulky to keep with us in the luggage going back and forth all of the time.

The girls did not want to go for a walk today so we left them behind when I took Dominica down to catch her bus.  It’s only a five minute walk to the bus station.  We had to wait there for about fifteen minutes.

The bus was on time at twenty past four in the afternoon.  I was able to throw Dominica’s luggage under the bus.  The bus was only half full so she had no problem getting a seat to herself for the trip.  We waved goodbye as her bus went south out of the square and disappeared to head down to the sea.

I walked back to the house and spent the rest of the evening with the kids.  And thus begins our eight days of just me and the kids, alone in Italy.  This is a new adventure for everyone.

Dominica’s bus ride to the airport was very easy.  The bus dropped her off right there and she had no issues getting her flight on Vueling from Catania to Rome.  She didn’t have overly long to wait at the airport; it all worked very well.  We will do that in the future, I’m sure.

Dominica had no issue flying up to Rome.  She made her transfer and was off on a Vueling operated British Airways flight from Rome to London Gatwick.  It was around midnight when she got up there.  Her flight out of London is not until about six in the morning so she has a long time to hang out in the airport with nothing to do.

The girls and I had a nice evening to ourselves.  Luciana did not want to watch Spy Kids 2 today so we skipped it to watch tomorrow.

Our big thing this evening was that we bought the very first Nancy Drew book on the Kindle so that we could read it in bed.  We made it through two chapters with me reading one page then Liesl taking a turn to read a page.  It started off slowly, so I am hoping that it manages to grab the girls’ attention.  It would be great if they got into reading more.

When we went to bed Dominica was still waiting to get on her flight.  She should not be on the plane until long after we are asleep here and it is a ten hour flight over to Orlando.  Then she still has to rent a car and drive to Cocoa Beach.  She is going to be awfully tired when she finally gets to the hotel.

Sunday.  Dominica is already totally packed for her trip to Florida tomorrow so she really has nothing to do today for that.  She has been packed for most of the week, partially because she has been trying so hard to get as much stuff moved out of our house here as possible so that we don’t have to keep dealing with it while we are over here and especially so that we don’t have to get it back to the US later.  We packed too heavily, but we are getting better at that with each trip that we take.  It’s a slow learning process.

Dominica edited a paper that I wrote today and I got that submitted this morning.  That has been keeping me busy much of the week.  So that was good.  That took us a bit of time this morning and the girls slept in late so Dominica and I had a chance to hang out and talk for a while.

We took it easy today, although I worked a bit, but by this evening it was family time for everyone.  After a month of trying to convince the kids to watch Madagascar on Netflix I finally talked them into it tonight.  Liesl wanted to see it, but Luciana did not.  Once it was on, however, Luciana really enjoyed it.  They watched it very closely.

After that we watched Spy Kids which I have never seen and the girls both loved.  It’s cute and has an incredible cast.  There are at least three of the series available on Netflix here, so the girls are anxious to get watch all of them.  We are going to spread them out and watch them while Dominica is gone.

I got Liesl to try the one modern Jackie Chan movie that is available on Netflix here: The Spy Next Door.  She loved it and wants to see more Jackie Chan movies now.  It was a big hit.

We had a nice evening of just all hanging out.  Tomorrow will be pretty busy as Dominica is going to be dealing with her flights and bus and stuff most of the day.

Saturday. I had worked super late last night not going to bed until around six in the morning so I slept in pretty late and was back online this morning working around noon.  I still have some more work to complete from the stuff that I was working on yesterday so I got right down to it and had a pretty busy day of work today.  I have to get caught up on a lot of stuff today because by Monday I will have basically no free time at all because it is just me and the girls here for over a week and I will be super busy with them all week.

Pretty much I was sequestered all day up in the office.  Did not have much time to do anything fun.  The girls were really involved in their own things for most of the day so they were not too concerned about hanging out.  I was able to hang out with them tonight, but they were having so much fun doing their own things with each other that I figured that it would make way more sense for me to get work done and let them play.  We will be together all week.

Since Sims 3 has not been available on Steam for them since we got to Italy we decided to just buy it for them on the iPads as well.  So they downloaded that today and played it a bit, although they do not like it nearly as much as they like the full version on Steam (where we have all of the expansion packs, too.)

The girls wanted to go for a walk.  So we went down and grabbed a pizza for them, and went to the panino truck and ordered fries for everyone.  While we waited the girls ran around in the square for a long time.  It is clear that we entered the shoulder season here today – th square was full of people and more restaurants were now open and even the gelato place was open.  Totally different than we have seen it thus far.

This evening I did manage to spend a little time watching Modern Family.  We finished season seven tonight, we are now completely caught up with it as far as Netflix has it.  I believe that they are one season behind, but I’m not sure.  That is one great show.

First thing this morning I walked down to the local store and got some supplies for the day.  Just the store around the corner and the panificio.  They didn’t have much today, I can never figure out when is the right time to go there.  It always seems like they don’t have much, early or late isn’t much of a factor.

Once home I got down to work.  It is Friday and I am hoping to not have too much to be doing over the weekend. Dominica leaves on Monday and I can’t have things backed up for next week since it is just me watching the kids all week.

Lunch was reheated pizza from last night.  For dinner it was veggie burgers and I came down and hung out for a while watching Modern Family for a while.  But after about four episodes I was back to work, as was Dominica.  She has been struggling with some new web tools for several days.

I worked until after four in the morning, but it was a good day.

I slept for eleven hours last night!  Boy did I need it.  I went to bed at eleven and was up at ten.  I feel pretty good and it is a nice day.  I got right upstairs and worked for maybe an hour before Dominica was ready to head out to the grocery store.

I had found a technology store around the corner last night and we stopped in this morning to see if they had a router that we need.  They did not, but it was a good place to poke our heads into.

We walked down the hill and did a good bit of shopping.  We found an interesting Sicilian pistachio liquor that we just had to pick up.  Looked too good.

On the way home we stopped and treated ourselves to gelato.  We sat outside and enjoyed the warm sunshine.  It was nice to have a quiet moment.  Dominica is starting to stress about her busy upcoming week of traveling alone to the United States.  She leaves on Monday and has a lot to do before then, including packing not just what she needs but also carefully selecting anything (like winter coats) that we will not need again while in Europe and getting it all back to the US to drop off so that we don’t have to carry all of that weight around for the rest of our time here.

Once home I worked all day, even late into the night not going to bed until four.  I had planned to knock off at a normal time and go down to the living room and hang out, but the girls were having so much fun just playing with their toys with each other that I figured it was best to be productive and just let them do their own thing.  Dominica did web design work until about one in the morning so she was busy, as well.

We did all go out for dinner around nine.  We walked down and picked up pizza that we plan to eat tomorrow.  Then we took Dominica down to the panini truck that we found yesterday and ordered fries and sandwiches.  The girls love going to the square by the arch and just running around, so we sat there for most of an hour while they ran and ran playing freezing games like “museum” for a long time.  It is good, they needed the exercise.