Sheep Guarding Llama

The kids all slept at Francesca’s last night.  Dominica and I slept at Joe’s house but had to be up by seven this morning in order to get over there in time for everything.  So we had both of our alarms set for seven.

Dominica was actually up early and ready to go before seven. She came into the bedroom and flipped on the light at exactly seven, the very instant that both her and my cell phones went off.  It was like a bomb went off in the bedroom.  I leapt out of bed pretty darn quickly!

We were ready to go in a few minutes and were quickly over to the Grices’ house for Christ.  We were there long before eight.  The kids were up not too long after we were there.  Joe and Brittany did not come over for a few hours.  Brittany is starting to feel a little under the weather and everyone figured that she would need some extra sleep and Joe has been working long days the last couple.

The kids had all gone to bed on the early side and so were up at a pretty early hour (for them.)  We got right to the business of opening presents which went on until nearly two in the afternoon.

Dominica and my big present from her parents is a GoPro Hero4 Black ultra high definition (4K) professional camcorder.  We are very excited about this in general but especially now that we are going to be in Europe and California so much of the time!  We had originally asked for this when we were hoping to be vacationing in Europe for a few weeks this year, but now that it is going to be most of the year it really changes things! The value of this went way up.  It is really perfect for us.

After we were done opening presents we went back over to Joe and Brittany’s house for Christmas even dinner around four.  After dinner we did our “ugly sweater contest.”  I only got one vote, from Liesl.  Luciana votes for herself, of course.  My sweater was pretty awesome, though, I had several pounds of green garland to make me look like a Christmas tree and then silver garland to make it look like I was decorated.  Then candy canes hanging off of me and twenty five feet of purple LED Christmas lights!  It was pretty intense.  And heavy.  And expensive.  And I only got one vote 🙁  I even had a star for the top of my head.

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

We all slept in this morning.  We have been pretty tired.  Got up around nine.  I took the laptop downstairs and got to work.  Not the busiest day, but some amount of stuff to do.  I am still so incredibly backlogged with work that I will be struggling all month just to get ready for us to start our new adventures at the end of the month.  Just catching up on emails alone is a struggle.

Dominica went over to Francesca’s late this morning.  Francesca came over to pick her up so that I could keep the car for driving the kids around later.  They are helping the Grice kids to work on their ugly sweaters this morning.

Liesl and Luciana opened the last door in their Playmobile Princess Wedding Advent Calendar this morning.  They got the horse that they both believed was in there.  So they spent the morning playing together with their new Playmobile stuff.  They sat at the table with me so I could overhear the storytelling unfold.  It is so cool to get to casually hear Liesl’s rich, imaginative worlds unfold.  Her play time is so complex.

The girls and I went over to Francesca’s house later in the day.  We were there for a few hours then back over to Joe’s house for Christmas Eve dinner a little later on.  We had a nice evening with the whole family hanging out.  I played pool and darts with the guys for a while.  Dominica and Francesca took the kids back over to Francesca’s house earlier in the evening to get them ready for bed and to get them to all settle down and to do their Christmas Elf pajama routine.

Once everyone was in bed and asleep all of the guys drove over and we all worked on setting up for Christmas until about half past midnight.  This was one of the earliest nights being down with that that I can ever remember.  Still very late and we are all really tired.  I’ve been telling Dominica that she really needs to get more sleep and to be sure to take her vitamins because she is getting run down and is going to wind up getting sick if she isn’t careful.

Dominica got to sleep in a bit this morning because Francesca had to take Garrett to the clinic early this morning to get tested for strep throat which, as we already knew, he has.  Then Francesca picked Dominica up and they went shopping again this morning.  This should be their final shopping trip for Christmas.

I watched the girls for a while and then took them over to Francesca’s house around one.  I had a light lunch there and then went back to Joe’s for two hours to do a little more work and to shower and stuff so that I could go back at three to get Dominica dad and all of the six kids because we were taking them to see Night at the Museum 3 so that Dominica and Francesca could get some Christmas work done at the house.

We went down to the Mall of the Mainland to the Cinemark 12 there.  The movie was awesome. Liesl has been dying to see it.  It was a really great wrap up to the other two films.  I was really impressed at how well and how touchingly they tied the three together.  I really enjoyed it.  Luciana spend the entire movie sitting in my lap.  She was tired of sitting in the theatre by about halfway through but she did a great job and stayed quiet and sat through it even though she did not want to.

After the movie we went back to Francesca’s house and everyone got Panda Express and watched Home Alone which I have not sat through actually watching it in a very long time.

After the movie the kids played.  Liesl has been addicted to watching the cheesy Anime show Yu Gi Oh.  She and Garrett played some Call of Duty too.  Dominica, Francesca and I set about working on our ugly sweaters for the contest on Christmas.  I did not have the supplies that I needed so Emily and I made a run to Walgreens and stocked up on stuff.  My sweater is going to be pretty good.  Unfortunately it also cost $80 to make 🙁

We spent hours working on the sweaters.  That is a lot of work.  I was no where near done by the end either.

It was nearly midnight when we got back to Joe’s house.  Luciana put herself straight to bed.  No pajamas or anything, just “carry my up and put me in bed.”  Liesl was only minutes behind her.  Neither changed, grabbed iPads or anything.  Luciana was asleep in under a minute.  Liesl in a few minutes.

Dominica and I stayed up talking with Brittany until Joe got home from work.  It was well after midnight when he got home and he has to be back at seven in the morning so he went straight to bed.

Dominica got up at six thirty this morning so that she could go shopping with Francesca at seven.  Way too early.  They were out shopping until almost noon!  That was a really long morning.  They were pretty tired when it was barely lunch time.

I stayed at Joe’s house all day today.  There is a lot to do and I need to keep working.  I can’t be treating my time before starting the new job as a vacation.  I have as much to do as I normally do during this window.   I got a lot of work done, though.  Mostly catching up on posting, emails, blogs, etc.  I have been so far behind.  I am making great progress on things.

I took the girls over to Francesca’s late this morning so that they could play with their cousins.  I went back to Joe’s to continue working.

I went back over to Francesca’s to join everyone in the evening.  We ordered in dinner from Kelly’s which makes the best breakfast around.  We love their food.

I had to fight to get Dominica back to the house at a decent hour to get some sleep.  Luciana is so exhausted by the end of the day.  She needs more sleep than she is getting.  We all do.

It was discovered tonight that Garrett has strep throat.  So pretty likely we are all going to have it soon.  Francesca is going to take him to the clinic in the morning to get checked out.

Dominica was up a bit before me this morning.  I am still feeling the emotional drain of the last few months.  But today feels good.  I got up around nine and helped to get the girls ready.  Once they were up and ready Dominica took them over to Francesca’s house to spend the day with their cousins until early afternoon when they were going to head out to the Grice Family Christmas at one.

I spent the entire morning sitting at the kitchen table working almost exclusively on SGL.  I got all of November and December updated last night and today I worked on getting all of October updated and a few days in September.  It is going to take a while for me to work back through all of September and get that all filled in as many of the days are missing but many are there and more than a week is the Spiceworld window which I can fill in very easily.

I also put in a ton of effort cleaning up my email.  I have fallen so horribly behind for the last several months.  Partially this was because I would get swamped with emails from recruiters or companies looking to potentially hire me and I was reticent to turn them down until we had something solid lined up.  So going back through and responding to hundreds of potential jobs and letting them know that I am no longer available and cleaning up all of those emails has been a high priority.  I need to get my email cleaned up so that I don’t miss things and can function better.

I worked until around two then Joe drove me over to Francesca’s house where I spent the rest of the day.  It was just a few of us there for about an hour until the Grices returned from their own Christmas event.

Nothing planned today. Everyone just hung out at the house.  Some of the baking continued.

We didn’t stay too late tonight.  We were back to Joe’s before nine.  Luciana was ready for bed before we were even back.  A full day of playing with her cousins is more than she is used to.  Everyone needed some sleep. Dominica has been up way too late the last few nights.