Sheep Guarding Llama

I woke up at a quarter till nine this morning and breakfast at the Home2 ends at nine.  I had promised Liesl that I would get her up in time for breakfast in the hotel so I told her quickly to get up and we got ready to run out of the door.  Dominica and Luciana got up too and raced to get ready, and followed a few minutes after Liesl and me.

Breakfast was sparse, but good.  We had an enjoyable breakfast and really liked that the Home2 kept breakfast open as long as we were there and didn’t kick us out.  It was very comfortable, we like this hotel a lot.

After breakfast the girls and I went outside to check out the fire pit.  It had rained the night before and I did not realize it and I ended up sitting on an outside couch and getting my butt very wet.

We stayed in the hotel until half past noon.  We are Silver members so get late checkout and the Hilton really takes care of us.  I had good, solid Internet so did a bit of posting while I had my laptop working.

We checked out, packed up the car and drove over towards Belden Village and went to the Bob Evans there.  The family enjoyed it so much yesterday that they decided that they wanted it again today.  The girls did a great job eating their food, too.

From there we drove over to Louisville to Aunt Marlene’s house getting there about two thirty.  We hung out with Aunt Marlene and Uncle Don for most of the afternoon.  Aunt Cheryl came over for a little bit but just gathered up the girls and took them off to the local park so that they could play on the giant rainbow playground there.  They were very excited about that idea and we’ve not had a break from them in a while so it was a nice bit of quiet.

Later on we all went over to the playground too.  Grandma, Aunt Gayle and Monica met us over there as well.  We were there for a few hours until the girls were really worn out.  Then we went back to Aunt Marlene’s.  Joe was the last one to join us in the evening after he was out of his apprenticeship class.

We got Domino’s for dinner, which was very good.  Everyone was really tired and we were all in bed by eleven.

Aunt Marlene’s new dog, which is only four pounds and named Kloe, is a bit of a terror and has Luciana very scared and her and even cornered Luciana in an upstairs bedroom at one point.   Even Liesl gets chased around by her a little bit.

I got up at nine at the Comfort Inn and Suites.  I let everyone else sleep and I was out of the room before ten.  We were just ten minutes, and one exist on I70, away from Scale and they were very easy to find.  It’s not all that hot in Indiana this morning, but the humidity is ridiculous.  You were wet the instant that you stepped outside in any way.

The girls slept in as long as they could and then checked around at 12:30 and went to the Bob Evans that was in the same parking lot so that they could get a nice lunch.  Dominica had decided that we would just pack up and go after I was done visiting with Scale today rather than spending the night in Indianapolis and then having to drive out to Ohio tomorrow.  She did not tell me this until late, though, and I did not have cell service at some points during the day so I was not able to plan around it well.

The girls loved their lunch at Bob Evans and want to go there a lot more often.  Dad is excited to hear this as he really likes that restaurant and has been wanting us to go there in Batavia.

I had a good day in the office.  Got to meet lots of people and got a tour.  Did lunch with the tech support group and got Vietnamese from Pho36 which was awesome.  The food was amazing.

I left at four thirty and raced over to pick up Dominica and the girls who had been hanging out in the lobby of the Comfort Inn for three hours as the hotel would not hold their luggage past that point behind the counter (which is pretty obnoxious for a hotel to do in general, and even moreso given that we are very highly rewarded members of their rewards club and have like a decade track record of being very loyal – I was not impressed at all with the customer service last night or especially today at the Comfort Inn.)

We got right on the highway and fought Indianapolis rush hour for a while, but did pretty well getting underway to Ohio.

It’s just over five hours from Indianapolis, through Dayton and Columbus, up to Canton.  It was going to be around eleven when we would arrive in town and we knew that the family would be asleep so we got a room at the Hilton Home2 Suites, which is Dominica’s favourite hotel to stay in, and crashed for the night.

The room was great and this is my first time getting to try out the Home2.  I liked it as well, although I like the Hilton Garden Inn better, I think.  But Hilton remains our favourite hotel chain, they have been so awesome to us.

I set up my laptop but pretty much was off to bed in half an hour.  I’m very tired from all of the driving and am looking forward to a nice night of sleep.  The Hilton beds and pillows are always so nice.  Liesl made me promise that I would wake her up in time to get breakfast in the morning, she is excited about getting breakfast.

Big driving day.  I was up at seven thirty this morning.  Everyone was very tired and not ready to get up and out the door as quickly as we had originally planned, but I had built in enough time for that, so it wasn’t a problem.  Dominica was up around eight and that’s when we started packing the car.

We got on the road at ten.  About the latest that I had originally scheduled as being reasonable.  It is fourteen hours of road time to get to Indianapolis and I really wanted to get in pretty close to midnight.

We had a pretty good drive today.  The weather was good, the kids did great, and McDonald’s offering breakfast all day is just about the best thing ever.  We eat a lot of Egg McMuffins sans meat, these days.

It was a long day of driving but we made pretty good time.  We were very tired by the end of the day, of course.

We arrived in Indianapolis at three in the morning, but I did not get to sleep until well after four thirty.  We stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Plainfield really close to the Scale offices that I will be visiting tomorrow.  A great location and we got a really good price on the room.

Monday.  This is it, last day in Dallas.  What a week do we have coming up!  Today we are in Dallas all day, but lots of packing and stuff to be done before we can leave early tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we are driving to Indianapolis where we are spending the night.  Then all day Wednesday we are going to be hanging out with Scale in Indianapolis.  Then staying there another night.  Then on Thursday we will drive to Canton, Ohio and see the family and spend the night there.  Then Friday morning we will get on the road and drive to dad’s house which is only five more hours away.

We did some box sorting this morning while we waited for the kids to get up.  Liesl slept until maybe ten.  Luciana actually slept till more like one in the afternoon! It was crazy.

Once they were both up we got them ready and went to Waffle House for lunch.  Liesl has been asking to go there for a while.  Lunch was good and the girls just ate and ate.  Luciana ate a full thing of eggs, and Liesl ate a full thing of hash browns and they split a waffle.

We came back home and after not too long Chris came over for an hour or two and we talked business.

Today is my big “catching up on SGL” day.  I am finally fully caught up which has not happened since, at best, sometime in June.  Sorry everyone for how busy things have been.  Will do my best to keep up although September is looking like it is going to be insane.

This week is all about travel.  We get to NY on Friday.  Then Saturday Maria arrives from Panama!  Then things are very busy as we prepare for MangoCon which is only about two weeks away!  Then from MangoCon it is right back down to Dallas.

Tonight was a lot of packing and cleaning.  Rachel was not around most of the evening because she was at a choir audition.  I ran out and picked up Indian for Dominica and me.  Liesl wanted Taco Bell, so I got that for her.  And Dominica and I made mac and cheese for Luciana.

 

Dominica was actually the first one up today.  Then Liesl.  Then me.  Luciana and Rachel were both still asleep around noon!  We wanted to get lunch at Denny’s but it is always a challenge getting the kids moving and ready.  It took forever but eventually they were up and Chris met us and Rachel followed along too and we all went up to our old Denny’s on Frankfort to have a very late breakfast or early lunch there.

Chris came back to the house to hang out after lunch for a while.  Rachel had to go work on shoe and dress shopping, she is at under a week to the Miss Texas competition so is pretty busy.

Chris hung out for an hour or two until it was mid-afternoon.  We had heard a rumour that our Dungeons and Dragons game was going to be on for this evening but it was never clear.  We spent a few hours trying to coordinate that.  At first it was going to be two in the afternoon, then it was like six and it finally ended up being eight thirty, which is pretty late for getting started on a Sunday night, but we did the best that we could.

We had a fun game. We ordered in pizza from Joe’s where Dominica and I used to get Italian take out often when we lived here three years ago.  We didn’t have the full group but did pretty well with Rachel, Shawn, Dominica, Nick, Gerald and Melanie.  Only Tim, Mike and Will could not make it and we were able to make due pretty well with what we had.

We played till about midnight and called it a night.  Not nearly long enough to really get into it but I think that it went decently well.