Sheep Guarding Llama

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.

I woke up at six this morning and was way too warm as there is no air conditioning in Luciana’s old bedroom because the vent there is broken.  And I was sleeping in the tent with the girls so it was extra warm.  So I got up for a bit, used the bathroom, took a shower and felt a little better and went back to bed.

I might have slept for another two hours, it is hard to say, but I got super warm again and really felt sick this time.  Ended up being sick, just a little bit, all morning till maybe eleven.  After that I felt fine.

Dominica didn’t get up until closer to eleven.  She felt fine all morning but around two got even sicker than I had been and ended up basically going back to bed and staying there more or less all day.

So that was pretty much our entire day.  Even Rachel was a little sick, but was out shopping nearly all day as she prepared for the Miss Texas competition which is just next weekend.  She is down to the wire and still has a lot of outfits to prepare.

I started watching Friends tonight on Netflix.  I’ve seen the show now and then and probably saw the whole first season when it was new, maybe.  But I’ve never really sat down and watched the show even though I always liked it.  I was never in love with it but always enjoyed it.  So now I’m giving it a chance that it is on Netflix and I can actually watch it in order so that it makes more sense.

Dominica skipped dinner but I was feeling well enough to eat so had food delivered in from Panda Delite which turned out to be excellent.  I had the spicy orange shrimp and loved it.  Liesl got the chow mein, but they didn’t deliver chow mein but chop suey instead, as many American Chinese restaurants do, so she didn’t want any of that.  Luciana got sweet and sour shrimp and loved them.