Sheep Guarding Llama

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.

Monday. We are supposed to be getting the house all packed up, but we have been slacking on that a bit.  I did writing and posting mostly today.

This afternoon I moved the gaming rig into my office since we don’t need it in the girls’ room any longer as that is getting packed up and I managed to play a couple games of Age of Empires 2 HD, which I have not played in years.  There was a new update that came out over the holidays that we have that adds new civilizations and fixes so there is even more to check out on it.

Boy am I bad at AoE2 these days.  Both I have gotten insanely rusty after more than a decade of not playing but also the game has gotten a lot harder as the AI has been significantly improved over the years, too.

Sheep Guarding Llama enters its seventeenth year!  Hard to believe, we are approaching the two decade mark.  How can it have been so long?  This also begins our third year as a globe trotting family.

I was the first one awake this morning, up at least an hour before anyone else.  Eventually L got up and we hung out for probably an hour or two.  Eventually her boyfriend and Dominica were both awake and joined us in the dining room.  This is the first that she and I have had much time to hang out.

The morning lingered into afternoon and it was a slow and relaxing day.  A lot of cleaning to be done, of course.

This is it, the end of 2016.  It’s been a rough year here on earth.  This is the end of two years of continuous travel for the Miller family.  Very hard to believe that just over two years ago we packed up and left New York to begin our process of becoming full time travelers.  Two years on the road and in two weeks (and a day) we will be on the plane bound for Rome, Italy.  Our first time in Italy south of Tuscany.  We can’t wait.  And I have been working like crazy on my Italian.  I’m on day 44 of my streak with DuoLingo.  I can’t wait to see how much I am able to understand in Italy itself.

Dominica and I got up around eight.  I did some writing this morning and actually managed to pump out several articles.  It was a productive morning.  MangoLassi set a new traffic record this month, too.  Busiest month ever, that’s awesome.  Dominica went to the salon this morning at ten thirty.

When Dominica got home we went out to The Egg & I in Plano for brunch.  I got the holiday hash (without meat) and she got the crab cakes Benedict.  Yummy.  It was nice to get a quiet brunch to ourselves.  Rachel was still asleep until after brunch so she did not come with us.

After brunch Dominica and I did some shopping at Kohl’s in Carrollton and got a load of new shirts for me which is great.  I have been needing some.  And we got a pair of stylish boots for Liesl so that she can be twinsies with “aunt” Rachel.  I showed Liesl a picture of them over text with Emily down in Houston and Liesl said that she liked them.

We hit the liquor store while we were up near The Colony and grabbed a few bottles for the gathering that we have planned at the house this evening.

It was probably four when we got home.  We got to hang out with Rachel for a bit and do some casual cleaning.  I have also been working on removing unneeded games from our Steam gaming laptop so that it is faster and more able to handle indexing everything and to make it possible for the kids to actually find games that they are interested in playing as the number on there is just overwhelming.

Dominica’s mother has gotten addicted to Steam, just a week after getting her new laptop that “didn’t need to be able to play games.”  So now that their laptop is not even a fortnight old, they are looking at ordering a gaming laptop for her father so that he can play online games with the kids.  He bought thirty four games on Steam already today.

We had a pretty small, low key party this year.  Only about seven people stopped by and some people were asleep by half past might and by one thirty it was just Morgan and me left awake and we did all of the cleaning up and were in bed by two thirty.