Sheep Guarding Llama

Got up around seven this morning.  We were covered in fog.  Totally fogged up.  When I sat down at the dining room table to get to writing today the fog was so thick that I could barely make out the cars on the road right in front of the condo (that is the Galveston Seawall.)  Within fifteen minutes the fog had suddenly pushed back and it was dark here, but completely clear but we were encased in a wall of fog not far out to sea.  Totally gorgeous.  By eight the wall of fog had blown so far out that I could just see the oil rigs out on the horizon in the clear area with us and the wall of the clouds behind them.  What a great morning.  It was the perfect temperature to have the door open as well, so fresh air.

Dominica tried gaming this morning before the girls got up.  After a year or more I have finally motivated her to fire up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or KOTOR as it is known.  She only played the first tiny bit of it and it is clear that we need to figure out our audio issues with our gaming system before she proceeds.  But at least she has a character and the game fires up.  Now maybe she will work her way through it once we are settled in Greece.

Today was a big gaming day for the girls.  Since we got the second Steam Controller last night the girls wanted to try it out today.  Dominica was not up for doing school today so the girls got the day off.  Liesl actually wanted to do school but was happy to play games all day.

The girls started with Lego World.  But they quickly went on to the Lego the Movie which is a two player game.  There was a lot of fighting but they played well for a long time.  Having two controllers is going to be a very good thing.   They were very happy about the games.

After a few hours on that game, Liesl moved to Lego Harry Potter Years 1-3.  Between Liesl, Luciana and Dominica they played for at least five hours today on that game!

Today was my big day for setting things up in the lab.  Got the new Scale Cluster up and running and now I am building a new Linux Mint terminal server to use as a jump box for accessing it.  I did a lot of lab work today, that kept me busy nearly all day.

It was pretty much a family gaming day.  The girls pretty much played video games, mostly together and sometimes apart, until it was time for bed!  They just camped out on the couch and gamed like crazy.  This Steam system was a great investment.  This is going to work out really well.

Today is dad’s last one in Texas.  We will not get to see him again for six months.  We had a slow morning around the condo.  No plans today.  I have so much to do that I am at the laptop much of the morning.

For a late breakfast or early lunch we went to Miss Kitty’s Seaside Cafe, probably around eleven thirty.  It was after breakfast but lunch had not started yet.  We were the only ones there when we arrived but there was no one there to seat or take orders and before anyone could arrive, which probably took fifteen minutes or more, the whole dining room filled up and a few tables even left!  They were having issues today.

Liesl got her shrimp basket, which she is apparently addicted to, and the rest of us got breakfast.  It was very good.

 

We did not have very long at the house before it was time for me to drive dad up to Hobby International.  We wanted to avoid traffic issues so left around a quarter after two and made very good time.  He was at the airport by three and I was back to the house shortly after three thirty.  Dominica was surprised when I walked in the door.

This evening we knew that the new Steam Controller, our second one, had arrived at Francesca’s and we knew that we needed to make a run to the storage unit up that way so we loaded up the kids and made a run, stopping first at the Grices’ as it was nearly eight when we got up there.  Then we went to the storage unit and making it through the gate and halfway back to our unit when we realized that we had not remembered to bring the keys and had no way to get into it.  So this was a wasted trip.  At least we had managed to pick up the controller for all of our effort!

We turned around and drove back down to Galveston.  We stopped at the CVS and Subway.  Dominica went shopping at CVS, we needed some basic supplies.  Then she waited in the car and the girls went with me to Subway to get dinner.  Liesl really wanted to try a sub loaded up with vegetables because she wanted to “eat something healthy.”  Traditionally she has gotten just cheese, lettuce and mayo on her subs.  But she wanted to add green bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers today and she loved the sub.

We got home and put on My Big Fat Greek Wedding from the beginning so that Dominica could watch it as she did not get to see any the other night when we started it.  Liesl kept saying that she did not want to watch the movie but once we were sitting down watching it together and eating our subs together and snuggling on the couch she decided that she liked it and had a good time with a family movie night.  Luciana was not interested and went in the other room.

Dominica is feeling a bit ill this evening and just sat on her own in the chair and skipped dinner.

Dad got into Rochester and was home around midnight.

Today is Monday and dad’s last full day here in Galveston.  He is heading back to New York tomorrow.

Dominica and I both slept in this morning.  It was nearly eight when we got up.  We were tired.  I did some posting this morning until ten.  Everyone just sat around till ten when Dominica and I took the Chevy Malibu and returned it to Enterprise Rent-a-Car down the street.

On the way back we stopped at Randall’s to do some quick grocery shopping.  We needed to get a birthday cake for Liesl because we are going to celebrate her birthday tonight!  It is our last chance to do that.

We got home and pretty soon thereafter set out for the Golden Corral for some lunch.  Dad has not had a chance to go there yet.  We had a very good lunch.  The girls love getting the variety.  Liesl especially loves Golden Corral’s broccoli.

It was a busy day of posting for me.  MangoLassi maintained its massive performance all day with 145K views for the day!  That is just crazy.

So I was busy at the laptop nearly all day.  We had the door open today, a nice breeze all day.

Dominica and Liesl got in a full day of school today.  Luciana played a lot of video games today.  Mostly “Lego Worlds”.

Dad went for a walk over to Walmart this afternoon to get a can opener as the one in this condo is just unusable.  It is totally broken and does not open anything.

We celebrated Liesl’s birthday tonight.  She had her pink princess cake and got her big present – a Minecraft stop motion video kit.  Both she and Luciana are super excited about it.

Dominica cooked chili for dinner.  Once the chili was cooking down, Liesl requested the evening be spent watching The Book of Life because she wanted to show it to grandpa.  It is possibly her favourite movie.  She was squealing, she was so happy as she watched it.

We were pretty tired when we got up this morning.  We all slept in quite late.  Dad was up before Dominica and I got up for a change.  It was nearly nine when we got up!  It is a very cold and extremely rainy day today.  Huge storm pounding the island.

Our first order of business this morning was to get to Enterprise Rent-a-Car and get a vehicle so that we would be able to get to the Dickinson Christmas Concert as we do not all fit into the Spark.  Dominica and I drove across the island in the Chevy Spark.  The rain was very heavy but Enterprise was easy to find.

We got a nice, charcoal grey Chevy Malibu for $49 for the day.  It was positively pouring when we picked it up.  The poor people working at Enterprise were having a rough day.

I followed Dominica back to the house.  We had to work our way across the island and there was some heavy standing water on the roads.  At one point we saw cars parked with water up to their doors.

We ordered in delivery from Miss Kitty’s Seaside Cafe.  Dominica and I both got the country scramble which is a huge cat head biscuit, scrambled eggs, hash browns and white gravy. It was amazing!  We wanted to get more of it right away!  Liesl ordered the shrimp basket again.  She is addicted to Miss Kitty’s shrimp.

Before we left to go to the concert Dominica managed to get signed in and pay for our flights to Europe.  We are now officially all booked with our flights taken care of for the full first half of 2016.  We leave Texas on December 30th to fly to Istanbul, Turkey and immediately on from there to Athens, Greece where we will attempt to catch an immediate flight down to Crete.  It is going to be an insanely long leg and the longest any of us has ever done at once.

We are returning from Bucharest, Romania to Istanbul to New York in mid-June.  Another long, long trip.

We have our home in Greece all booked and paid for.  We have contacted a home in Transylvania that we are really interested in but do not have any confirmation about that one yet.

We had to leave at eleven thirty to drive up to Dickinson for the concert.  The Malibu was perfect, we fit into it easily.  The rain kept up the entire way up there.

We met up with the Grices going into the concert.  The girls and their cousins ran around like crazy people all over the school lobby while we waited for them to open the concert hall.

The concert was great.  We all really enjoyed it.  And I cannot believe how well the four littles did!  None of them was an issue at the concert – although they did all have iPads to play games to keep themselves occupied.  But they all made it through the entire concert.  Liesl’s cough was the biggest issue but Dominica was well stocked with lollipops to shove into her mouth if she started to cough.

Both Madeline and Emily are in the top band, the wind ensemble.  It was insanely impressive.  This is the first time that I have gotten to see them play in this group.  It is really something.  I’ve not heard any high school perform like that.

On the way back we stopped at Buc-Ees to get gas in the rental and to show dad the staple of Texas culture.  He was suitably impressed.  He even checked out the “Best Bathrooms in Texas.”  This is the newest and largest of all of the Buc-Ees so he really got to see it in all of its glory here in Texas City.

On our way back to the house we drove out to the north on the island and went to Joe’s Crab Shack.  Dad has never been to a Joe’s Crab Shack and he loves seafood so we figured that this would be a good stop for him.

We had a great dinner and the girls ate well too.  We always enjoy having dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack.  They are very consistent and have a very large menu that we really like.

Back at the condo we were going to watch a movie and dad did not know the song “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie so I put the movie on for a minute to show it to him and he ended up getting addicted and wanting to watch the whole movie!  So we watched that which make the girls very happy.  They love that movie and have not watched it in a very long time.  Not since we were in Peekskill.

After The Lego Movie, we finished up our annual viewing of White Christmas.  Good thing that we got it done, it is now officially the Christmas season for us.

Dominica was up and gone long before seven this morning.  She and her sister are spending the day baking cookies for different functions that are coming up.  I was expecting Dominica to be gone all morning but she ended up being gone for the entire day!  I got up around eight and had no idea how early she had left.

So today was just dad and I hanging out at the condo with the girls.  It was mostly dad playing with he granddaughters all day.  We had a nice, relaxing day.  I got a bit of posting done.

We spent a bit of time just hanging out out on the balcony today.  We have two rocking chairs out there.  Throughout the day mine kept getting worse and worse with first the arm falling off and eventually the chair starting the sag and it had to be avoided.

It was a nice, quiet day.  Dad and I watched a few shows on Greece with the girls today.  Luciana talked again about how she wanted to go to Greece and hopes that we can get there soon.  Good news for her that we will be there in two and a half weeks!  We have not paid for our flights yet, do to our credit card issues the other day, but in theory everything will be paid tomorrow.

We ordered in Dominos pizza for lunch.  It was so windy that the receipt blew away before the delivery guy ever made it to our place.  It was crazy windy here all day.  At one point dad went into his room and found his coat still on a doorknob but blown out the window.  He was pretty lucky that it had not blown away completely!

Dad and I watched My Life in Ruins today which he has not seen in a very long time and did not remember too much.  The girls watched it with us.  They are starting to know it a little.

It was surprisingly late when Dominica finally got home.  Nearly time for bed!  We tried watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding which I bought for Dominica today because she has been asking for it for a week or two but she did not manage to really see any of it when we tried to watch it and we stopped it about halfway.

We have a busy day tomorrow.