Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is our last real day to see Rachel.  Rachel worked from home today, which we did not even know until late in the morning.  I thought that she had gone to work, but she actually had just not come out of her room all morning.  I heard her around seven thirty getting ready for work but I got up at eight and there was no sign of her so I figured that she was already driving to the office.  But she was actually home all day.

Dominica worked on planning and packing most of the day.  I worked on writing and posting, mostly.  Rachel came out and hung out in the house proper for the later part of the day.

This evening we decided to do something fun together since we have the rare chance to go out just the three of us.  We called La Cima and they tried to get us in for tonight but were so busy that they just couldn’t do it.  So I called the Tower Club downtown and they got us reservations for six!  It has been forever since we were there.

We had to leave the house around four thirty, of course Rachel wasn’t ready so we were running very late.  We just missed the train, it literally was sitting there as we walked up to get tickets.  So we had to wait a full twenty minutes in the cold for the next one to take us downtown.  At least going to the Tower Club we really do not have to drive anywhere.

We got downtown and were only about twenty minutes late for our reservation which was fine as they were not very busy.  We got a great table by the main windows, a table that I have been at several times before.  Dinner was awesome, we really miss the “clubs” and the dining that we used to have.  I got the blackened scallops.  Dominica got the pecan crusted snapper.  Rachel got the cedar plank salmon (and of course put ketchup on it.)  Overall, Dominica was the food winner of the evening, but it was all very good.

Rachel had loads of paperwork that she still had to do for the office so we came back to the house and were back before nine.  She put in about two hours or more working in the living room.  We hung out while Dominica laid down because her back was bothering her.

Around midnight Shawn came over and we played Cards Against Humanity with the four of us until around two thirty in the morning.

I am on my forty third day of my streak with DuoLingo!

This is our last day in Houston until next summer when we expect to be there sometime in July.  And today is my forty second day of my streak with DuoLingo!  I have been working so hard on my Italian for a month and a half now.

Today was pretty chill.  Francesca played Tropico 4 much of the morning.  She has really gotten into that game. Then the kids demanded that we play more of the Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb hidden object game that we had been playing last night.  They thought that that was so much fun.  Who would have guessed that such a simple, old game and some cheap laser pointers would be like the best thing ever.

We had been hoping to get on the road promptly today, but Madeline did not make it back from work until quite late, around a quarter after eight.  So we saw her just a little and were on the road up to Dallas.

The drive went pretty well this evening.  We had dinner from McDonald’s north of Houston and ate on the drive.  It was around one in the morning when we got to the house.  Rachel had been texting us all day hoping that we would get home before she went to bed, but she was asleep about an hour before we made it back.

Today is Wednesday and we are in Houston for the holidays and today is the forty first day of my DuoLingo Italian streak!  I’m feeling stronger and stronger on the language every day.

I “worked” from the chair in the living room all day.  The day was relatively quiet, no major plans today.  This is our last full day in Houston and it looks like Dominica’s brother and sister in law are going to drive to Frankfort, New York tomorrow for the funeral so they are going to be taking off just hours before we do as well.

Francesca played a bit of Tropico 4 today and is starting to get into it.  Garrett is into Yet Another Zombie Defense which is actually pretty cool as bargain games go.

This evening we decided that a few of us adults were going to sit down and play a hidden object game.  Emily and I decided to talk to the corner drug store to see if they sold laser pointers because I have been wanting to get cheap ones for the girls to use when we play hidden object games for family game night anyway.  Emily is always up for a walk to the corner store.

We got to CVS and thankfully they had exactly two laser pointers and they were in yellow (kind of a gold colour) and purple.  Perfect for Luciana and Liesl who will now never need to fight over them.  That worked out really well.  And they were just three dollars each.  So cheap.  I wish that we had things like that when I was young.  I still remember lasers being things that you could only see at a science museum!

We got back to the house and it took about five minutes for every kid to be all over all of us wanting to use the lasers and even Dominica wanted one.  So Emily and I set back out to see what we could find.  We had bought everything that they had at CVS so we tried Walgreens this time.  Walgreens had four laser pointers, all weird ones that projected shapes, and cost way more than they should have and turned out to not work very well.  But we got enough to keep the kids entertained and get through the night.  Now we know: laser pointers are a huge deal for family video game time.  I’ve been predicting this for a while but it really does let everyone get involved and participate rather than just watching and it was loads of fun.  All the kids had a great time and want to do this more often.

Today is Dominica’s mother’s birthday.

Also, Carrie Fisher who played Princess Leia in four Star Wars movies passed away today after having had a heart attack last week.  Hard to believe that she is gone, only sixty years old.

A mostly quiet day around the Grice household.    The Steam video game machine ran pretty much all day with Garrett and Liesl playing a lot of games.   Francesca was up playing Tropico 4 first thing this morning, but did not get a chance to get much past the tutorial.

Always a big day of rest after a busy Christmas day.