Sheep Guarding Llama

Got up this morning and before I was out of the shower Liesl had snuck into our room and snuggled with Dominica.

I worked from the house for about an hour this morning as there was so much to be done that I needed to make sure that work was moving forward prior to doing the long commute in.

The weather is gorgeous today. When I got in my car I discovered that the fuel efficiency had gone up, again. It is now 35.2MPG. I wish that I could get my day to day average as well. More information about the fuel efficiency would really be helpful. But boy is this car cheap to operate.

Today was incredibly busy in the office. I managed to finish reading “Troubling a Star”. I have “House Like a Lotus” that I am reading on the Kindle to finish yet and once that is done I can use my Audible to listen to “An Appropriate Time” and with that one, I will be all done with this series of books that I have been working on for quite some time. Since I need to wait before reading that last one via Audible I started rereading Irene Hunt’s “Up a Road Slowly” which I also read when I was young. I wish that I had records of when I read these things now as I have no idea at what age I read them or in what order and, in some cases, if I have read them at all.

My Wifi USB dongle arrived from Amazon today. That is for my desktop so that we can hook it up in our bedroom so that I do not have to go down to the living room to use a laptop or the basement to use the desktop and so that Dominica and I are not sharing desktops which drives us both crazy.

Katie arrived at the house in the late afternoon. She and the girls watched “Frozen” again. Dominica tells me that this was the girls’ third time through it today. They really love that movie. They have several “Frozen” books now too. Each of the girls got one for Easter.

I had a late day at the office because there was a technology showcase this evening after normal business hours that we were expected to attend. The upside is that it is different than normal work and it provides a “hard stop” to the day, but the downside is that it goes late and doesn’t assist in taking care of excess workload which has been a challenge the last week and a half.

There was food and drinks at the event this evening, which was nice. Goat cheese stuffed dates and a cheese selection for me. And wine. The event went late, nearly till eight which made for a very late night and later than I had been expecting. It was nine when I walked in the door at home.

Katie had attended a Netgear and Veeam event today which is why she was in town. She was exhausted after an evening of the high energy wonder twins playing with her all day. Luciana was worn out from all of the play time and put herself to bed shortly after I arrived home. Liesl stayed up until everyone went to bed, pretty much.

Dominica and I did a bit of discussing of our vacation plans for Europe later this year. We are trying to figure out what we want to do. There is a decent change that I will be in Barcelona for work in October so we are trying to figure out if we can connect the vacation time to that to make better use of the time.

At some point, probably around five this morning, Luciana figured out how to get to our room and ended up in bed with us. So it was all four of us there which, even with the window open, made the room pretty warm. I got up around six thirty and Luciana was up shortly thereafter and made me go down and get her an iPad and chocolate milk so that she could start her day. Before I left the house both girls had migrated to the living room which was mostly good as they would leave Dominica alone. They were happily playing together with Liesl’s new Easter Legos when I left to head into the office.

Beautiful morning. The weather is great this week. I stopped and got a sandwich on the way in.

Extremely busy day at work. Exhausting.

This afternoon both of the girls fell asleep and slept all afternoon into the evening. The weekend, plus Katie visiting and, I assume, the fight last night really wore them out.  Katie had gone back down to New Jersey this afternoon but she is going to be back here tomorrow for one more night because she is working in the city on Thursday afternoon.

I got stuck at the work until quite late.

I left work just about at eight and on the way home hit horrific traffic. It took a full 90 minutes to get home even though it was late in the evening.

The girls were awake and upstairs playing together when I got home. I had to set up in the living room and keep working until a quarter till eleven when I was straight off to bed.

I read in bed for a little while and finished reading Madeleine L’Engle’s “Dragons in the Water” and just started “A House Like a Lotus” which is the last of all of the books from her that I have to read from the era when I was reading them as a kid. This one was the O’Keefe series title written right as I started reading the books, in 1984.

Somewhere around midnight Liesl and Luciana, who were still wide awake and making a lot of noise in their room, ran into our room and climbed into bed with me. They had been so rambunctious all evening and once there they were both asleep in no time.

Dominica came to bed closer to one in the morning and was quite impressed that I was able to carry both girls, still asleep, into their room and get them into bed without any disturbance at all!

I felt pretty awful this morning when I got up. I was tired and I could barely open my eyes. Thankfully Dominica had gotten up super early so that she could take Katie to get on the seven o’clock train down to Manhattan so that I could get some more sleep. She woke me up before she left but it got me probably an extra hour of sleep or more which, apparently, I really needed.

The weather was great this morning. The drive in was fine. I stopped and got a breakfast sandwich along the way.

Work was fine today. Super busy, but fine. I did not get to come home until a little on the late side.

I had been expecting that Dominica was going to get Katie at the train station around five but instead of a short day in the city she ended up working all evening. So we did not see her until late.

We watched some “Frasier” and relaxed. I still felt crappy like maybe I have a cold or allergies or possibly pink eye. I would have gone to bed early but Katie wasn’t expected until around eleven. We got the girls off to bed before I went downtown to the station to get her.

We had a big fight between the girls tonight after they were supposed to have gone to bed. We found Luciana kicking Liesl in the face to keep her away from her (Liesl’s) CareBear that she sleeps with. So they had to be separated. Poor Liesl, she doesn’t fight back and all and just takes all of the abuse. Luciana was sentenced to sleeping alone and lost her iPad privileges and Liesl got to go sleep with mommy and daddy tonight.

Dominica’s parents went to morning mass and we got to sleep in. Dominica was the first one up and not long after her, Luciana came downstairs and just sat in the kitchen with Dominica watching a show on her iPad, probably “Blues Clues” because that is her show this month, it would seem. Liesl has been enjoying going back and watching “Blues Clues” with Luciana. It has been quite a long time since Liesl watched those and she is feeling nostalgic, I think.

Liesl came downstairs but because her grandparents were not home yet she was told to not look around and try to see any eggs to find. So she sat on Dominica’s laptop with her eyes closed and her hands over her face to make sure that she would not see anything by accident. She is so good. She would never try to cheat the game. She really tries to always play by the rules. It was so sad, though, as she could not do anything but sit there covering her face. I asked her if she wanted me to carry her back upstairs with an iPad so that she could watch something in bed until it was time for the Easter Egg hunt and she liked that idea.

Once Dominica’s parents were home I went upstairs and got Liesl (who was not engrossed in her show and not nearly as interested as she was before) and brought her down. We put the two girls at the base of the stairs and Luciana had found two eggs before we even said “go.”

The girls had great fun. Liesl, of course, found the bulk of the eggs. She found about 25 and Luciana found about 15. We had hidden 42, so two are now missing. It could be months before those are found.

At one thirty we went to Aunt Barb and Uncle Joe’s house in Frankfort for Easter dinner. Not a huge crowd today, just the ten of us (Dominica’s grandfather was there too.) After we ate Dominica and I took the girls out into the back yard where they just played and played. The weather was great – warm and sunny and the ground was not wet so they were able to just hang out and have a good time. We walked all over the yard and learned about pine trees and spruce trees and pine cones and all kinds of things. Liesl has decided that she wants to collect plant parts that she finds so that she can learn about them. She is also very excited about going to Florida soon because she will have a chance to get shells for her shell collection. She collected some on the beach in Barcelona two years ago but accidentally left the shells on a bus somewhere and is still sad about that.

For just a little bit before we the twins came by. Liesl and Luciana are so excited to get to play with the not quite six month olds. They had a great time.

By five we really had to get on the road to drive back to Peekskill. The traffic ended up being great, though. We made the drive in just three and a half hours which is unheard of for returning from Frankfort on a Sunday evening after a holiday. We were very happy about that. Liesl, however, is losing her ability to handle long car drives and thinking that these short trips in New York are the longest things ever. She has already forgotten are very regular drives across Texas that were much, much longer and just as regular, if not moreso.

Once we got home we cleaned for about an hour before Katie arrived from South Jersey. She is staying for a couple of days with us while she is working in Manhattan. She ended up sleeping in the guest bed in the girls’ room and the girls moved back to their bunk bed. They have been opting to sleep in the queen bed most of the time when given their druthers.

Luciana got Dominica up this morning and climbed into bed to snuggle with me after Dominica got up.  Luciana fell back asleep and we snuggled for at least half of an hour before Liesl woke up and once she was up Luciana got up and they went downstairs to play.

I spent most of the day sitting in the kitchen with the laptop working. I got a lot done, so that was good.

For lunch we got pizza. But Big Willy’s was closed so we could not get my favourite pizza.

This afternoon I had to work for an hour or two for the office too. But it went pretty quickly, not a big deal at all.

This evening I watched “Trouble with the Curve” which was actually a pretty good movie. Good people and a decent story. Mostly predictable, but everything out of Hollywood is these days. You can’t expect too much.

Once it was late, everyone came into the living room and we all watched the Superman series reboot “Man of Steel” which was actually really good. I really dislike comic book and super hero stuff but I have always liked Superman, maybe because it was the only one of those that was really a part of my childhood. The original Superman movie was so good. This, though, is a legitimate reboot of the series that has a lot of potential.