February 15, 2017: Continuing My Long Day

I ended up just skipping going to bed last night and worked through the night and all day.  I put in thirty hours straight by the time that I was done.  Basically did not leave my desk for that entire time.

So I worked all day.  Got to see the sun rise on the Mediterranean which was pretty cool.  It was a long day, but very productive and I felt much better by the end of the day.

I finished working in time to take the kids down to get pizza for dinner.  We ordered our pizza then walked down to the main street where there is an ATM (Bancomat) so that I could get some cash.  While we were there we discovered a panino food truck that operates there at night!  How cool.  So we had to stop in and order a caprese panino and some patate fritte (French fries).

While we awaited the food the girls went over to the big square in front of the arch leading into town and ran around like maniacs.  Probably good to wear themselves down some.

I liked the panino and the fries were pretty good.  We had a big dinner with loads of pizza and stuff.

We got home and put on Modern Family and watched that until I was too tired to stay awake, which was at eleven.  I went to bed, leaving everyone else up for I have no idea how long.  I was out like a light.

February 14, 2017: Pulling an All Nighter

Today is Tuesday and it is Valentine’s Day and, of course, my niece Madeline’s birthday; she is seventeen today.

I slept in some this morning but when I got up it was time to work on Valentine’s Day cards.  Dominica and I worked on that all morning.  Once the girls were up it was time to go out for ice cream, because I promised them that we would since we failed to find any last night.

We went down to the gelato place that we found last night.  Liesl and Luciana both opted for the bright blue puffo flavour.  Which was tasty but none of us was every able to actually identify it.  It could be anything.  Dominica got some chocolate combinations.  I was brave and went for the pistachio reale which turned out to be the huge winner of the day.  It was amazing.  Crushed pistachios on top and a huge amount of pistachio cream (think nutella but pistachio) all through it!

We sat outside to eat it for a bit but it was just too cold.  We came back in and Dominica and I got espresso, too.

We did not stay out long as it was kind of chilly.  So we just walked back home after our gelato and espresso.

The first order of business was that both girls were very anxious to present everyone with their Valentine’s Day gifts.  Both girls have put in a lot of work on these.  They both made everyone cards.  It was very sweet.  Dominica and I had to sit on the couch as the girls presented our cards to us.

The girls both got a box of Kinder Sorpressa which is three eggs each.  Plus a card from each of us.  They are pretty excited about that.

Once we were done exchanging cards and candy for Valentine’s Day I was up to the office upstairs to begin a work marathon.  There is just so much to do that I have to take the night off from any relaxing and just stick to it.  I worked all evening and all night.  The girls went to bed and slept there while I worked.  Dominica did a ton of work today too.  She has taken up a career as a web designer and has done so much work these past two weeks, it is amazing. The stuff that she is turning out is really great.

February 13, 2017: Monday

Monday.  This evening we blew a circuit in the house which was very confusing because it took out power all over the house and not in any one area.  Took us nearly an hour to figure out what had happened.

Tonight before falling asleep, Liesl texted Madeline to which her a happy birthday.

February 12, 2017: Family Video Game Day

Sunday.  Today became an impromptu family video gaming day.

I was doing some testing of new games that have been found and downloaded and the first one that I tested today was Samantha Swift and the Roses of Athena which is a hidden object adventure game that is well suited for kids and has a story based around archeology which is pretty fun.  The whole family enjoyed this one and ended up playing it for probably an hour or more!  I had meant to only test that it worked but the kids got really into it and were not willing to have us turn it off.

Dominica hard boiled eggs today and made egg salad for a late lunch.  The kids had fish sticks for dinner.

We tried out several different games this afternoon but eventually settled on returning to Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill and played it all afternoon into late evening and we managed to complete it.  Liesl said that it was still quite fun, but not nearly as good as the first two that we played.

We moved on to starting our four Nancy Drew game, which is number three in the series (number two is not easily available from anywhere that we get games, it is the only one that we can’t just get) and so tonight we started the very old Nancy Drew: Message in the Haunted Mansion.

February 11, 2017: Finally Sicilian Pizza

Saturday.  I made it out to the panificio this morning and picked up some break for later and croissants for breakfast.  They don’t call them croissants here, but I have not figured out yet what they do call them.

Dominica made lunch today, egg and cheese sandwiches with fresh, local break from the panificio.

My cousin who was murdered eight years ago finally had her murdered convicted today.  Not a cousin that I really knew, but one that I knew of.

This evening we managed to get back to Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse and we completed it tonight.  It was a very good story and we all had a lot of fun with this one.

We figured out the local pizza place tonight.  Dominica and I went out this evening and ordered take out pizza.  It was amazing that pizza here starts at just two and a half Euros!  We got a few different pizzas to go and headed back to the house to feed the kids.

Everyone really liked the pizza.  This is great.  It is so cheap to eat well here if you know where to go.

After beating our second Nancy Drew video game we decided to move on to Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill which is the very first Nancy Drew video game ever made, but this one is a 2010 remake of the original so that it works better on modern machines.  It is, though, the original music, text, acting, and story.  Nothing much was changed.  So it runs fine, but it is still an extremely dated game and it shows.  The girls instantly did not like it nearly as much as the other two titles that they have played.