Sheep Guarding Llama

We got up in the Super 8 in Atoka, Oklahoma this morning.  I was just about to get into the shower when Gwen called me to tell me that grandma had just passed.  The bleeding in her brain was just too much and she could not hold on any longer.  She had never regained consciousness and had been totally unresponsive for some time.  So we are no longer in a hurry to get to Ohio, we can take our time now.

We went down to check about breakfast.  The room said that it was open until ten but last night they had said nine thirty.  It was a quarter till ten and we had just missed it.  So we went back to the room and found ourselves locked out.  Even the hotel staff could not get us back into the room, the lock was broken.

So for two hours we were stuck at the hotel waiting for them to get the door open so that we could get our stuff out of it.  We had a nice view from the breakfast room as they tried to batter down the door.  The front desk guy opened the breakfast back up for us and made us breakfast while we waited.  That was an adventure on its own.

It took two hours to get us into the hotel room, so all of the time that we spent last night driving to get up to Oklahoma was lost from that.  We’d have been better off not leaving until this morning.

We got on the road and put in a long day. We actually had lunch with the Ralstons not far past Joplin, Missouri.  We were crossing paths out on Interstate 44 and were able to stop at a Subway there and get lunch together.  How weird that we crossed there.

We were in central Missouri, late at night, when the back left tire blew on the Nissan Quest.  It took a few minutes to figure out what had happened.  I pulled over at the best place that I could find.  We got out and looked and saw that the tire was totally toast. It was still there and no wheel damage, but the tire was useless.

It was a really busy and narrow part of I44 but thankfully, almost instantly, a wrecker pulled up and blocked traffic for us.  Nick, who was driving the wrecker, changed the tire for us at no charge and got us underway on our spare.  It was about 90 miles to St. Louis where we were going to Karen’s house to spend the night anyway.

I was so tired and so sick by the time that we were getting towards St. Louis that Dominica had to drive.  We limped into town and got to Karen’s house pretty late.  We hung out with Paul and Karen for a few hours before getting off to bed.  Lots of tequila tonight.

It’s Friday.  We spent the day packing like crazy.  So many boxes to go through.  Pretty much all of the boxes have been gone through at this point.  Now it is more about getting the rooms cleaned up.

It snowed this morning and Rachel got home from work very early, like still in the morning.  It is enough snow that it is a bit of a disaster for Dallas.  We heard of people having six hour commutes!

I wrote and posted pretty much all day.  Once the evening rolled around I was on duty for getting the girls’ room picked up.  They did a great job of helping be go through their toys and they determined that basically everything was to be stored and kept at the house, not coming with us to Italy.

While I was on the floor working on picking up the room Dominica came in to tell me that Monica had reached her to tell us that grandma had just been found at home, unconscious in a pool of blood in the living room.  She is being rushed to the ER, but it does not look good.

So we moved from packing “quickly” to packing “really, really quickly.”  We had been planning on leaving to head to Ohio either tomorrow or Sunday, but now we are trying to go tonight.  Packing in a panic is not good, this is us packing for the next six months, we have to get this right.

It was very helpful that Rachel was home today as it helped to get things done.  She is going to move into the girls’ room now since they have the nice bed.

It was about midnight when we got out the door.  We drove as far as we could which was not far, just to Atoka, Oklahoma.  I was very tired and we needed to stop.  We got into the Super 8 and got to bed.

Thursday.  I put in a normal day. Dominica worked like crazy all day going through the boxes in the garage to get ready for the final packing.  The Ralstons are getting to the house on Saturday night and we expect to overlap with them for just a little bit this weekend.  We want everything all cleaned up.  Shawn came over too, since the garage was now clear, and he was able to get the rest of his stuff that has been being stored at the house.  So we suddenly have tons of space that we did not have before.

Our real adventure for the day did not occur until this evening.  It got very cold tonight and we noticed that heat have issues, again.  I ran outside and checked before it froze out and found the heat pump encased in ice.  We tried working with the thermostat again but were unable to get the stupid 3M device to not run the heat pump.

My theory is that the 3M thermostat has not worked for years and no one has been paying attention to how much it has been running or how the house does not heat up properly.  I have not been here for a winter since the winter of 2012 – 2013.

So after trying to get it working for a while I spoke to Art and we all agreed that it seemed like the thermostat was the issue.  We have hated that thermostat since the first day with it.  Absolute garbage, I will never buy 3M products after that.  I checked the website and it looks like they sold the product line and maybe the company that they sold it to is out of business now as well.

I checked online and found that our local Home Depot carried the EcoBee 3 Lite that I want to get to replace our thermostat.  They had three listed as being in the Carrollton store so I immediately ran down there and picked one up.  It was the very last one on the shelf!

I came home and Dominica and I managed to follow the directions and replace the old thermostat with the new Ecobee and instantly the furnace kicked on and started heating the house.  The smell of burning dust from the furnace made it very, very apparent that the furnace has not kicked on in a very long time.  The house heated up like it has not done in a very long time.  We are so thankful that we figured this out.  Sadly we now have an amazing, new top of the line thermostat with really cool features just in time for us to leave the house for a very long time.

So that was some excitement, but it turned out really well and it was an upgrade that we have been meaning to do for a very long time.  So we are not too upset about it.  It was just bad timing.

Finally the procrastination is over and the real packing has begun.  The house is torn apart as luggage is all over the house and things are being packed as Dominica gets them ready.  There is a lot to do before this weekend and we don’t know when we are going to be heading up to New York, but it has to be before Monday so our time is almost up, it is Wednesday today.  Dad has not been feeling great so we have been delaying a little to give him time to rest up and feel better before we descend on him with the girls who tend to be rather exhausting.

Super cold here tonight, below freezing. I went out and insulated the exposed remains of the water line in the back yard.

The heat pump just keeps kicking on and causing the condenser in the back yard to turn into a block of ice.  This is a major problem.

I took the girls out for their final trip to get frozen yoghurt tonight.

Tuesday.  I got the kids to finally go out with me to Taco Bell and try some different foods.  We got a number of different things and they tried lots of stuff and discovered that they really love the cheesy roll ups and I discovered that I really like their new sweet and spicy double crust tacos.  They were delicious.  Now the girls are excited about going to Taco Bell more often, so this was a big success.

This evening we went to Quiz Night with Rachel as Michael agreed to babysit.  So this is our last night out for Quiz Night as we have to be on our way to New York this weekend as the Ralstons are coming down and need the space in the house.

Quiz Night went really well.  We had a good turnout, a lot of people, and for the first time we managed to come in fifth which gives us points in the finals.  But this is our last one so Radium and the Half Lives will have to compete without us after this.

Watson, Chris, Estella, Brandon and a few others made it out by the end of the night.