Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is my niece Madeline’s fifteen birthday!

We got up this morning at the EconoLodge south of Louisville, Kentucky.  Dominica had wanted to be up at eight thirty but it was nine thirty when we woke up.  But I am sure that we needed the sleep and it was probably a very good thing that we slept in as much as we did because we were now well rested and ready to really drive today.

We got on the road before ten and had a good day of driving.  There was no snow or rain all day and the roads were clear.  It was around forty degrees when we left the hotel but was into the sixties once we got into the deeper south.

We finished reading “Eldest”, which Dominica has read before but long ago and which I had not yet read, and then starting reading Sue Grafton’s “V is for Vengeance” which I have been waiting probably two years to have a chance to read.

Our drive went well.  Nothing really to note.  At one point I pulled off of the road to get dinner at a Taco Bell.  Just as I did that, Dominica said “I want Taco Bell!”  We had not coordinated at all.  We’ve not had Taco Bell for weeks and have only had it a few times this year.  How weird that we wanted it at the exact same moment!

It was thirteen past midnight when we pulled into Joe’s driveway.  We did not move our stuff in tonight but just the essentials as if we were in a hotel.  The girls were all still awake for Madeline’s slumber party but were all camped out in Cinema Joe watching Supernatural.  I had a few drinks with Joe and Bennie that Joe made for us in Joe’s Tavern which has been completed since we were last here.

We were pretty exhausted and were off to bed around three in the morning.

It is Friday the thirteenth.  I was up around eight this morning and got right to work down in the kitchen on my MacBook posting on MangoLassi as we were having a major event today.  It was a very busy morning with tons and tons of activity on the site.  We were really happy with the turn out.

Monica came over early this morning and played with the girls all day.  They had a great time.  Most of the family came over in the middle of the afternoon and stayed until I was nearly done with work.  They wanted to do lunch but we could not leave and getting dinner would have meant eating out after work was done and that was not a good option as it would have simply made us an hour or more later leaving Ohio which would have made the drive much harder.  No, better for us to just eat quickly while on the road.

We said our goodbyes and were off around seven thirty.  This is a three day weekend and Fridays tend to be early days.  So we were able to take off a little on the early side, which was awesome.

On the way out of East Canton we hit the Dollar General to pick up some candy for the girls and a  replacement auxiliary cable for the Acadia since we have no idea where we packed our existing one.  That only took a minute and then we swung into McDonald’s, since there was one right on Ohio 30, and grabbed a quick dinner to eat in the car and we were onto the highway and under way.

The drive went fine tonight and as soon as we were onto the highway portion of OH30 the roads were completely clear and we had to deal with no snow at all for the entire evening.  We were very thankful for that.

We continued reading “Eldest” which we had started while on the drive up to New York a few weeks ago.

It was around one thirty when I decided that I was getting pretty tired and that driving straight through was not likely going to work.  So we got to the south side of Louisville, Kentucky and stopped at the EconoLodge there.  Oddly, it turned out to be the EconoLodge that we stayed at on our last trip southbound to Texas before Christmas!  We were very thankful to get the very last room that they had available and it turned out to be two double beds so that worked out just fine.

We were asleep around two.  Tonight Liesl and I had one bed and Dominica and Luciana had the other.

Lots of driving to do tomorrow. Time for sleep now.

Today concluded my third week at the new job.

Today we are shifting from dad’s house in New York to my Aunt Marlene’s house in Ohio.  We need to be out to Louisville, Ohio before one this afternoon so we are in just a little bit of a rush.  It takes about six hours, with all of the stops included, to get to Louisville so we needed to leave by seven to really be safe.  The car was basically loaded last night so we were able to get up and leave pretty quickly this morning.

The drive out to Ohio went fine.  We had some heavy snow as we drove up to Buffalo but after that it was not bad although the winds along Lake Erie were something horrible.  We stopped at Dunkin Donuts in Batavia to pick up breakfast and coffee to have as we drove.

It was almost exactly one in the afternoon when we pulled into Louisville and my aunt’s house.  I had to get set up straight away to get online for work, which was actually rather busy today.  Busier than it has been for me, at least.

I worked from the kitchen all day. Gwen, Mike, Cheryl, Denny and Don all managed to come visit in the middle of the afternoon and nearly everyone else was able to come visit by evening, including grandma and Aunt Gayle.

The family got pizza for dinner and we just all visited at Aunt Marlene’s house.  The girls had a great time playing with everyone especially my cousins.  The girls love getting to go to Ohio.

We had a really nice time and were in bed at a decent time.  We are very happy that we managed to come stay for two days before being gone for so long.

Second day at dad’s.  This morning our first task was to get the UHaul truck delivered down to Leicester. We got up and the girls slept in for quite some time.  Dominica and I were both up before eight.  Liesl and Luciana slept in until around ten.  We needed to be out the door by ten thirty.

Dad helped guide me out of the driveway with the big truck.  I had to back out, which was no fun.  But it went well and I drove down to Leicester and dropped the truck off.  Dad and Dominica each drove down and picked me up and we went to the Questra Lasagna in Mt. Morris for lunch getting there right as they opened at eleven.  Sharon and Leo joined us just after we arrived.

The food was really excellent!  I wish that we had gone there sooner.  Everything was great.

It was a very good thing that we got there so early. It took more than an hour and a half to get lunch without any dessert.  I had to leave everyone early and borrow dad’s Volvo and drive back to his house early so that I could start work for the day and only barely made it for the start of day meeting at one in the afternoon when we started lunch at five after eleven!

Everyone else went to Sharon and Leo’s house for a while and played with their kittens.  I worked for the rest of the day until about nine thirty in the evening.

Dominica did a bit of work today, getting the car packed and things ready so that we can travel early in the morning.  We need to leave by seven to have a good chance of getting out to my aunt’s house before I need to work.

We were still all pretty tired today.  But far better than yesterday.

Dominica and I slept in all that we could this morning.  We were up around eight thirty, though.  No time to really sleep in, there is a truck to unload today!  So we got up and dad went down to the barn to finish up the last little bit of building the storage unit down there.  It was almost ready for us.  So we had some coffee while he finished up and I did a little posting to catch up what I could.  I feel very far behind on everything after doing nothing but traveling, packing or now unpacking since Friday evening!  What a weekend it has been.  It is already Tuesday and I have not stopped moving yet.

We were down to the barn to get moving by nine thirty, I would say.  Aunt Sharon and Uncle Leo came down to help and Danielle and Mike came up too.  The first order of business was getting the twenty foot box truck into position which turned out to be rather a challenge.  It got stuck several times and needed dug out and chains put behind it and after many attempts we finally got it into a useful position to unload.  That was pretty scary, it was pretty stuck and it is huge.  Nothing we have could possibly pull that anywhere.  Of course, now we have to worry about how to get it out of the driveway once all of the stuff is out of the back of it which will be even harder as it will be so light at that point.

We set about unloading the truck with everyone there.  It is super cold today, twenty degrees or possibly below.  In no time I was wet with sweat that then froze to me.  My hair was all covered in ice.  I had ice on my beard and mustache.  It was so warm moving so much stuff, though, that I did not use a jacket all day.

Danielle was only able to stay for a little bit as she had lots of work to do but she dropped off Mike and the minivan that we were loading with stuff too since they are taking a lot of the office equipment with them including monitors, desks, espresso machine, UPSs, etc.  Mike was a huge help as he was able to do a lot of the heavy lifting with me.

It took about four hours to get everything unloaded, such faster than loading the truck.  We were all done around one thirty.  Perfect time for me to get to work.  It worked out really well.

It was such a relief to get all of that unpacking wrapped up.  The only thing left is to get the truck unstuck and down to Mt. Morris to drop it off.  We are planning on waiting on that until tomorrow, however.  We are all completely exhausted today.

Art and Danielle picked Mike up shortly after we were finished and Sharon and Leo decided to go back home and nap.  We ordered food in from Pap Roni’s (Davis’) in Pavilion and they delivered it so that we would not have to try to get a car out of the blocked driveway.

We got pizza, mac and cheese bites, onion rings and a sub for dad.  We were frozen and soar.  Time to just do nothing for a while.  I needed to work but was able to do so from the laptop just sitting at the kitchen table so went no where at all.

I spent the day working from my laptop.  Nothing too exciting happened once we had finished unloading the truck.  In the late afternoon dad and I went out and got the truck unstuck and lined up so that we will be able to get it out and take it back to UHaul in the morning.  We did not want that hanging over our heads all night as it might have left us with a disaster tomorrow. Now it should be pretty easy to just back it out and drive it down and be done with it.

Dominica spent most of the rest of the day doing bits of laundry intermittently between long bouts of sitting on the couch and reading on an iPad.  She is really worn out and needs a rest.

I managed to get a lot of posting done today both in tech posts and getting SGL completely up to date.

We all went to bed pretty early.   We are all tired and soar.  The girls wanted to stay up quite late, they had a slow day rather than a busy one and were full of energy all night.

Tomorrow morning we are going to take the girls down to Sharon and Leo’s to see the kitties and then we are going to drop off the truck and get lunch in Mt. Morris at Questa Lasagna which we have been wanting to try for a very long time but have never gotten a chance to do.