Sheep Guarding Llama

Last night I dreamed that I had to go to Tokyo for work.  It was a very odd dream and one of those ones that you keep waking up from and when you fall asleep you go back to.  I was up often enough during the night that when I finally got out of bed I figured that it was after eleven but it was really just a quarter after eight.  Very odd.  Our room got very cold last night.  It was in the low fifties outside and Dominica had the fan going so we were quite cold since we only had one fleece blanket and noting else.

Dominica was up before me so got a jump on the shower.  The girls were fast asleep having really worn themselves out yesterday.  They slept in until after ten.

We had hoped to be up and out the door by nine thirtyish this morning.  Not happening.  The plan had been to go get a late breakfast at the Westchester Diner before embarking to Rockland County and the Bear Mountain State Park Zoo for a day with the girls.  As it was we got to the diner just after eleven.

Lunch was very good. Liesl opted not to eat, Luciana got pancakes as is her standard.  She almost always gets pancakes.  Dominica got breakfast and dad and I both got the fisherman’s platter which I had told him was really excellent there.  He agreed that it was really exceptionally good.

From the diner we went straight north out of town and over the Bear Mountain Bridge and south to the park. It is really quite close to us in Peekskill.  Very little effort.

Bear Mountain State Park, to which we have never been before, was packed with people.  The weather was really nice today.  Warm but not hot and overcast.  No rain though.  There were so many people that they had us park out in the grass.

The girls were really excited that there was going to be a carousel at the park today.  They both love carousels.  We were parked right next to it so we went there first.  Neither dad nor Dominica likes being on a carousel so that job of taking care of the girls on the carousel always falls to me.  The girls wanted to ride in the “swan boat” so the three of us rode in that.  The carousel there is really nice.  Although at one dollar per ride, it is not super cheap.

After the carousel we went for a walk.  A long walk along Hessian Lake on the 1777 trail took us to the zoo.  The zoo there is very small and features animals from the local area.  We saw a pair of red foxes, a porcupine, an Eastern Coyote, bald eagle, white tailed deer and tons of other birds.  They have a number of “trailside museum buildings” along the trail too which were very nice.  One was an fish and amphibian house that Liesl really liked.  There were several neat exhibits.  The park is excellent as a park, a local wildlife zoo, some neat historical points of interest mostly related to the American Revolution and some miscellaneous natural history museums.  The park was partially created by the American Museum of Natural History which helps to explain the focus.  And there are tons of really neat trails through the park too.

It was a great day.  Exercise, something different and lots of good education for the girls too.  On the way back to the car we hit the carousel again, of course.  Two more times around.

This evening we crashed at the house and relaxed.  We watched Romancing the Stone which none of us have seen in a very many years.  What a great movie!

This morning, Dominica went grocery shopping and dad and I stayed home with the girl.  We have been terribly low on groceries recently and we really needed some basics to get through the week.  We’ve been running lean on groceries and other semi-discretionary spending as we attempt to get back on top of our expenses after a very brutal winter of spending and the need to pay for Dominica and the girls’ upcoming Florida vacation in a few weeks.  We are doing fine, there have just been a crazy amount of bills that we’ve had to go through recently and it takes a little while to get back on top of them without taking drastic measures.

We just spent the day, mostly in the living room, hanging out.  No real plans or activities.  The girls have missed their grandpa so were all over him all day.

This evening we watched the latest Star Trek film: Star Trek: Into Darkness.

 

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I had planned to leave work early this evening so that I could drive out to Croton-Harmon Station to get dad from Amtrak when he arrives this evening.  So I had planned to leave work at four thirty.  But as the time to leave work got closer, dad’s train got delayed more and more as it seems to always be.  So I ended up staying late rather than leaving early.  Although not very late.

On the drive to Croton it was raining just a little.  It was dark and drizzly all day in Connecticut.  By the time that I got to the station it was ready to really rain.  I tried to stay outside to wait for the train doing some walking to and fro in front of the station but soon it started to pour and drove me inside of the station with everyone else.  There were girl scouts out front of the station selling cookies, but they were in a covered area.

I was only at the station for half an hour before dad’s train arrived.  On the drive back to the house we stopped to get food.  Dominica had told me to bring home food tonight and there is only one restaurant really on the way from the station to our house: Julianne’s Schoolhouse.  We have been really wanting to try that place for a while.

I was surprised to find the restaurant was completely packed.  The parking lot was full and the restaurant was standing room only!  We managed to get seats at the bar and I had a beer while we waited for the food to be ready to go.  I got a veggie burger and dad got a real burger and for Dominica I got calamari as an appetizer and their miso cod for dinner.  The food all turned out to be really excellent.  Not cheap but really good.  It is really neat that this place is so close to home.  It is amazing that we have never been there and Dominica has never even seen where this place is.

We watched a little of Antiques Roadshow while we ate dinner at the house.  The girls were so excited that dad was there for the weekend.

It was off to bed early for everyone.  Dad was worn out from his long day of train travel.

I found Luciana in our bed this morning when I got up.   Neither Dominica nor I have any idea when she sneaked into our room.

The Spark flipped to 35.4 miles per gallon today.  It just keeps getting better and better gas mileage.  Such a good investment.

I worked late today, not getting home until after eight this evening.

After work today I came home and discovered Dominica had gotten herself addicted to old reruns of the Antiques Roadshow from PBS.  She got the idea from watching Frasier where they talk about the show and then she found that it was available via one of our online streaming video services (I don’t remember which one.)  So she watched that this evening.  There are not many episodes available online right now so she worked through most of it pretty quickly.

Just another day at work today.  Nothing special.  Quiet evening at home after work.  A little light cleaning.

Tonight we read the second chapter in “The Magician’s Nephew.”  Liesl continues to really like this book and is super involved asking all kinds of questions about things in the book.  She is finding this very educational.