Sheep Guarding Llama

Wednesday in Houston.  We are on our final week down here for the summer.  We are planning on leaving to head back to New York early next week.  We don’t know exactly what day we are leaving yet, but likely over the weekend unless I get scheduled to go to Indianapolis.  We had planned to leave this Friday night, in two days, but needed to stay to help out with driving kids around through Tuesday evening.

Luciana’s finger is much better today.  She made it the whole day without even thinking about it again.  Thank goodness, she was such a mess about it yesterday.

I wrote all morning, was very productive.  I feel great about my day, today.  I got so much done.  Plus had some good meetings, too.

Dominica did a ton of flight planning today and managed to get Maria a flight from Panama City, Panama into Rochester, New York.  She got an amazing price, she is so good at this stuff.  We are very relieved and Maria is coming up to handle all of the filmography for MangoCon in September!

I ran out and did some grocery shopping this afternoon, hit Taco Bell for some lunch and gassed up the car.  Today was my first time ever shopping at the new Walmart Neighborhood Market that has opened up near the Grices’ place.  We watched it getting built last December.  It’s a great place to get groceries, cheap and very friendly and quick.

Dominica and I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out our travel plans for the fall.  We think that we are closer now that we have been.  Dominica is very, very concerned about the risks from mosquito borne illnesses in the Central American tropics, where we want to be all autumn, and that is causing complications.  We really want to be in Chiapas and possibly Belize or Guatemala, but those are all prime mosquito countries.  So we are playing with tons and tons of different possibilities to try to find something that will give us what we want and works with schedules, flights, safety, cost – oh traveling full time is very difficult.

This evening the Miller clan broke off and did our own thing for dinner.  We went out, just the four of us, to the Cheesecake Factory that is just down the road from the Grices.  I’ve never actually eaten in one, I don’t think, but have only had delivery before (or take out.)  Dominica has been without me recently.

Dinner was excellent.  We had really great food and the girls just loved it and devoured their food.  They ate really well and said that we need to eat here a lot more often.  They want to come back tomorrow.  Liesl says that this is almost her favourite place to eat but still prefers Waffle House.

It was late when we got back.  The little kids all played some video games together for a little while and were off to bed.  Dominica and I had to stay up late because her parents were flying in from New York on Southwest coming through BWI.  We were originally going to pick them up at eleven but because of storms in Baltimore they were delayed several times and we could not get them until very late.

Today Luciana, while taking a bath with Liesl and Clara, played with Dominica’s razor and sliced up her finger.  She is exactly the same age that I was when I cut my thumb on my dad’s razor blade.  But it was only two blades when I cut myself, it’s five now.  It cut the end of Luciana’s finger into a fanned out bit of skin from all of the little blades.  She was bleeding and very upset.  It was not too bad, really, but it was very upsetting for her.

After writing all day today, this evening I actually watched Friends for the first time in twenty years or so.  I actually never saw most of the show when it was new so these are all new episodes, to me.  Then The Fresh Prince of Bel Air came on.  I have not seen that in forever, either.  But I did see most of those when they were new.

I am back in Houston this week.  Our plan, as it currently stands, is that we are going to stay down here until the middle of next week and then head back towards New York.  We might decide to stop in Dallas on the way back, we will see how our schedule works out.

Lots of writing today, it was a busy weekend  and I am catching up with it today.  The kids are really busy playing with their cousins and barely even noticed that I was home today.

It is just a short weekend for me in Dallas.  Heading off to Houston again tonight.  I only got Friday and Saturday as full days here.  I am thinking that the family needs to stay here next  week when we head north back to New York.  It cuts the drive a bit and the girls have been anxious to see the house again after all of these years and Rachel and Dominica want to get to hang out.

I packed up this morning and loaded up the car before anyone was even awake.  Then we were free to hang out until I needed to leave.  Chris came over and stayed for an hour or so.  He has a busy weekend so didn’t have much time to hang out.

I went up to Brian Watson’s new house in Little Elm, north of The Colony, early this afternoon.  He bought the house about six months ago so hasn’t had a chance to show it off yet.  It’s brand new, built for him in a new development up there.  We probably hung out for about an hour.  Great house, really nice and modern and comfortable.  Makes me a bit jealous, but I love the old styling of our Brady Bunch era house.

It was easily five when I got back to Carrollton.  Was only there for an hour or so, said goodbye and got back on the road for the drive down to Houston.  It was great getting to see everyone and nice seeing the house and getting to hang out.  We all really miss being in Dallas.  We have more friends there than anywhere else and we really like our house there.  Nice to know that it is still standing.

I got back to Houston pretty late at night.

Today I am going to be running the Dungeons and Dragons game at the house, another “haven’t done that in three years” thing.  Everyone slept in late this morning.  I’m getting very good sleep in Liesl’s old room, the bed there is small but comfortable.

We did some running around today to pick up supplies and get ready for the D&D game today.  Our first matter of business, though, was lunch and we all drove up to Plano in the Spark to go to Rockfish which I have been craving for years.  They are one of my favourite places to eat and I have not gotten to eat there in, you guessed it, three years.  I could not wait to get back and have their volcano shrimp and Santa Fe fish tacos.  Everyone really liked it.

Rachel made a grocery run while Shawn and I made a liquor run.  It’s not easy to get liquor in Carrollton as it is a semi-dry town.  So we always have to drive to The Colony.  I forgot what a pain that was living here.

The D&D game officially started around six, which was much later than I thought that we were going to be starting, but only Will arrived around six and everyone else started straggling in much later, like closer to eight with some not arriving till around midnight!  It did not work out so well for getting things started.  Will had left to go home before Mike had even arrived.

We did manage to play, about thirty minutes, right at the end and people were just starting to get into it and then nearly everyone had to go.  Not much of a game.  Rachel said that I did an awesome job for the little bit that we got to play.  But it was a day of prep for a thirty minute game and no idea when people will be able to get together again, so probably did not make any sense to do at all.