Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday.  Today Dominica and I had to go to the outlet mall where Madeline works (but Madeline was not there at the time) to go to the Sketcher’s outlet store so that I could get some shoes as we can only buy them when we are in the United States due to my foot size and my old ones are really worn out.

We took a really long time looking for shoes but finally found me a pair of sneakers, much like my old ones, and a pair of more casual shoes.  My foot have continued to grow and I am now in a fourteen, instead of a thirteen!

Dominica looked for shoes but was not able to find anything that she wanted even going to another store as well.

It was incredibly hot today.  Very uncomfortable to be outside.

This evening Liesl requested Panda Express, again.  So I went out and picked that up for our family.  Tonight is the last night for Dominica’s parents in Texas.  They are heading back to New York early in the morning and Dominica is driving them.

I had almost no sleep last night so went to bed very early tonight.  Dominica decided to sleep on the couch because she had to be up so early to get her parents off to the airport.

This morning was up early and cleaning all morning, mostly for Francesca and   Dominica and their dad came to help, too.  Dominica’s aunt and uncle were coming to see the new baby and were going to be spending the day at the Grices’ and so it was a few hours of getting the house ready this morning.  No easy task with six kids all over the place and two giant dogs (and a hedgehog.)

The Internet has been just terrible for us while in Houston.  It is out constantly.  Easily five to ten times per day.  I can’t wait to get back to the third world where the infrastructure is more stable.

Family visited for much of the day so things were a bit hectic.  But they really only stayed until mid-afternoon.  So the evening ended up being pretty relaxing.

Saturday. This morning the Miller family was on our own as everyone else was out at sporting events so we had a bit of time to ourselves.

I actually ended up dealing with some technical issues today so that kept me busy for a few hours.  That was not expected.  Luckily I had the free time today in which to do that.

I worked on a Graylog2 system all day today.  Got that working, which is awesome.  I’m loving it now on the latest version.

Did about fifteen Windows Server installs this evening.  That’s not something that I normally do on a Saturday night.

Dominica and I watched The Golden Girls tonight for the first time in a very long time.

Friday.  Originally we had thought about leaving tonight or tomorrow to head north but there are so many logistical challenges getting the Grice clan where they need to be that they need us around to drive and we are able to stay at the house instead of renting a hotel for the week so we are staying a few more days.  Leaving today had always been a very loose plan, anyway.

Dominica and I went out to the storage unit today and grabbed a few things to take back and go through at the house and assessed the situation a little bit to get a feel for what we are going to do with what is left in there.  We are planning to empty it out next week but this is the first that we have seen it since December.

Thursday in Houston.  We have been trying to figure out what our travel plans are going to be down in Central America this fall.  We really have no idea.  But we are leaning towards Chiapas in Mexico and Guatemala.

I went out this morning and dealt with getting the car officially registered.  Now we can legally drive it again!

This evening we just hung out at the house and watched television.

Today Dominica and I went to the airport to pick up her parents.  We had to drive Madeline’s car as they would not fit into ours.  Their flight was supposed to get in fairly early, like in the late evening, but storms in Baltimore held them off for a really long time and we didn’t manage to get them until the wee hours of the morning.  They are staying over at the Toccos’ so we took them over there to drop them off.