Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday and our first day of full on “routine life in Dallas.”  We are here for the next five to six weeks and need to get to “normal” as quickly as possible after one of the most disruptive summers that we have had.  The last few months since leaving Romania have been crazy.  Between bouncing around from place to place and staying with family nearly full time all summer we have had no normalcy, no ability to control our schedules, no routine and no way to cook.

Today, our meals are nothing but salads, Liesl is spending the day doing school and I spent the day writing.  A normal routine, for the first time in three years, here in the Carrollton house.

It was a productive day, we were very busy the entire day.  The weather was great, too.  About seventy degrees and a light rain for part of the day.  We opened doors and got some fresh air in the house in the afternoon.  That was a really nice change.  We so rarely get to do that in Texas.

This evening I went to Walmart and bought a 40″, American made television as we have nothing at all at the house on which to watch anything.

The TV turned out to have been broken in shipping.  So I had to load it back up, run back to Walmart and exchange it.  But Walmart is so good about that stuff.  So we had a working television after not too long.  Only $198 for a 1080p American made 40″ LCD.  I can live with that.

Rachel had to go to the office today.  So we did not see her until late and she took a nap as soon as she got home.  So we did not get to see her very much.

 

Liesl and I were the first ones to get up this morning.  It is Sunday and everyone was sleeping in.  So Liesl and I just hung out together for a while, several hours, before anyone else woke up.

Since everyone was asleep, Liesl and I went to Denny’s on our own.  It was nice getting a morning away together.

Very low key day today.  I have a feeling that we are going to just hide here in our house for a while.  The party last night really wore everyone out.  And several people crashed at the house last night, as well.

Lots of cleaning to be done today, the house is  a bit of a mess.

We got up this morning in Cuba, Missouri and went out to the local bakery with Paul and Karen.  We got some food there but did not stay long.  We have a lot of driving to do today and we need to get down to the old house in Carrollton, Texas.

After the bakery, while everyone was getting ready, Paul and I went to his office and I got a tour of their large manufacturing facility which was really interesting.  They have a really impressive new facility there and are expanding a lot.

After leaving Paul’s we went down Route 66 and visited the world’s tallest rocking chair that is there.  One of those quintessential Route 66 driving experiences.

The drive went well down to Carrollton.  It was late when we got in and got unpacked.  We are tired.  A long day, a long week, a long month. We are looking forward to having some time to just crash at our house and regroup.  We have almost a month here before we expect to be off to either Mexico or Guatemala.  That’s our next thing to figure out.

Rachel has the master bedroom.  The girls are sleeping on the floor of Luciana’s old room.  Dominica and I are using Liesl’s old room.

We got to the house and had to get ready right away for a house party that Rachel had invited us to.  This was her “Classy Mixer” party that she has been planning for some weeks.  It ended up going until six or seven in the morning.  Quite the party.

It’s driving day for us!  We left dad’s farm in New York this morning and headed west for Cuba, Missouri where we are planning to crash for the night.

The drive went fine.  Nothing really special. We do this drive all of the time.

It was pretty late when we got into Cuba, Missouri to Paul Chiodo’s house where we hung out for about an hour before crashing for the night.

This is it, our final day in New York for 2016.  Today’s project is to get a new car and pack.

I had to run to Batavia on my own this morning and take the little Spark into get the hood latch fixed so that it would be able to be sold in NY.  What a pain.  While I was there I walked around Batavia a bit going down to the Taco Bell and picking up breakfast for myself.

Once the car was done I went back to Taco Bell and got breakfast for the family and drove back home.

We went up to Webster again today and we were able to, after a lot of work, get our new 2015 Nissan Quest.  Unfortunately it is in black, but that could not be helped.  It drives great and is in really good condition.  We are pretty happy and the girls are going to be thrilled.  They have been asking for a minivan for a long time.  And they said that they really liked the one that we had over the weekend.  Liesl told me to buy one just like that one, and I did.  So she cannot complain after this.

Thanks to my dad who paid for the majority of the new minivan.  We would have not been able to get it otherwise.

All evening after getting the minivan was about packing.  We leave for Texas tomorrow.