Sheep Guarding Llama

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.

It’s Friday and my first full day in the Carrollton house in three years.  Waking up here was… odd to say the least.  It is so bizarre being back in this house after so long.  It’s so familiar, it still feels like home, but it is also so foreign.  But very little has changed, other than the furniture all being moved around, it mostly feels like I was just here.

I had the house to myself today.  Rachel and Shawn were both at work all day.  That worked out fine as I just set up in the bar area with my laptop and worked for the day as usual getting my writing and posting done.

For lunch I drove down to where Rachel works and met up with her and her friends Melanie and Ashlie and we had lunch at Mi Camina or “Fake Fernando’s” as it is know the group for some reason.  I had the fish tacos, they were pretty good.

This evening we just hung out at the house once Rachel and Shawn got home from work.  Rachel had to work late so was not home until around seven.  She had originally thought that she was going to be able to leave work early and be home closer to two but that didn’t work out.

Thursday.  This evening I am going to drive up to Dallas to visit friends there, check out the old house and see what is going on.  Rachel and Shawn have been living at the house since we saw them last year in Europe but none of us have seen the house for three years!

This evening I went and got the Spark inspected so that I can register it in Texas again.  That’s a huge ongoing challenge for us due to how Texas handles car inspection and registration.  Today is my first time driving the Green car since December so I had no requirement to inspect or register it yet since we were out of the country and state.  But now that I need to move it, it needs to be inspected.  It needed an oil change anyway, so that wasn’t so bad.

So I wrote and posted all day.  We ran some errands and kept ourselves busy.  We got the car all ready but I didn’t end up leaving League City until eight in the evening because Dominica kept making me stay for something later and later and didn’t make dinner until very late.  So it was many hours after I intended to leave that I managed to actually get out onto the road.

It was dark by the time that I left League City, it is a long drive to Dallas.  I made good time, though, even in the little green Spark, as there wasn’t all that much traffic.  So I sped right along and did okay.

When I was going through the Woodlands, Chris texted me to let me know that he was at the house hanging out with Rachel.  I guess he had been assuming that I would be up there much earlier than I am going to be.

It was around one in the morning when I got to the house.  Getting through Dallas was tough as I don’t have Toll Tags any longer and the roads have changed a lot and I just don’t know my way around well any more.  It has been just a few weeks why of three years since I have been in Dallas!  Totally crazy.

It felt so weird getting back into town.  I’ve not been in the area and can barely remember the streets around my own house.  So weird.  I even made a few wrong turns in the winding streets around the house.

Shawn was still awake having just gotten home from work at Cafe Brazil and let me in and made sure that I was all set up with what I needed and got the air conditioning vent opened up for me in the guest bedroom (Liesl’s room) so that it would not be so hot.  There is a bed and everything for me ready to go.  So straight to sleep for me.

It’s been over a year since I’ve seen Shawn, I last saw him (and Rachel) in Spain up in Jaen just before we left to head off to Norway and they were preparing to go to Barcelona.