Sheep Guarding Llama

We all slept in this morning until we were well and rested then it was up and straight out the door.  The drive north was not too bad.  We made the trip well and were up to Frankfort at a good time.

Spent the afternoon just visiting with the family.  I had a lot of posting to do so was on a laptop for much of the day.  The girls were super excited that grandpa went into the attic and found Dominica’s old She-ra toys, of which she had nearly the entire collection, and brought them down for Liesl and Luciana to enjoy.  Dominica had to explain to them all about what the toys were and how they all went together.

This evening we went to the Kitlas for dinner and just back to the house.  Dominica and I took her mother’s new Subaru to dinner to test it out and her parents drove our Acadia with the girls.

I am still really tired today.  I’ve been exhausted for two weeks.  We are going up to Utica this weekend and decided that today we would stay at home tonight so that we could get some sleep and be well rested up and then drive up tomorrow.

Work was busy but good today.  Didn’t get home until late but things went well and we had some time to relax tonight as a family and get to bed at a good time.

We will be on the road as soon as we wake up tomorrow.  I tried getting felafel on my drive home tonight but I was late enough that they had already closed by the time that I got there.

I took the Acadia to the office today. First time that it has moved in a while. We drive it only very occasionally. The Spark is rapidly catching up with it in mileage. Really rapidly.

Overall good day at work today. Very productive and full of good forward movement. I feel like today was a progress towards a slightly lower stress rate.

I left work a little early today, at five thirty, so that I could take the Acadia to get an oil change done. That actually ended up being really easy to deal with doing it on the drive home. As long as I leave just a little bit early I can just stop off on the drive home and there was no wait at all doing it at that time even though I was stopping off, just off of I287, during rush hour. Very handy. We have been needing to get that oil change for a really long time now so I felt very good being able to get that done today. One of those things that has been on my plate for a month. Luckily we never travel so it didn’t matter very much. But we hope to drive up to Utica this weekend so we need the car to be in good shape for the drive.

I got home at a decent time and the drive north along the Hudson was gorgeous and I just felt like going out. So Dominica got the girls ready and I got to the house and loaded up the car with the family and we drove down to the river to go to the Westchester Diner for dinner. Dominica had not really wanted to go out for dinner tonight but the girls both said that they wanted to go get dinner with daddy so she was outvoted.

Liesl, out of nowhere, decided that she wanted shrimp for dinner and since they do not have shrimp on the kids’ menu I got the fisherman’s platter so that she and I could split the meal. This resulted in her getting to try clams too and, surprisingly, she was totally receptive to trying them and declared that she really like them. It has been a while since Liesl has tried anything new. She found them very hard to chew but she liked them. I found that the fisherman’s platter there was amazingly good and one of the best fisherman’s platters that I can ever remember having, anywhere.

Luciana got mac and cheese and Dominica got a veggie burger.

After dinner we just came home and watched a couple episodes of Cheers which, believe it or not, I have mostly never seen. I saw it from time to time when I was young (the show came on in 1982 when I was only six, just barely older than Liesl) but it never caught my interest enough for me to actually sit down and really watch it and I do not remember my parents being much of a fan so I think we only ever saw it when nothing else was on and never made a point of watching it. It is a decent show, I like it. But it isn’t good enough to rivet me to the television.

Got the girls off to bed at a moderate time and read another chapter of “A Horse and His Boy” and Dominica and I even managed to get off to bed ourselves around eleven which was really needed as I have been getting more and more tired recently.

Another normal day at work. Nothing to report there. Somewhat of a stressful day but not horrible. I had to go home on the early side this evening because I have work to do late tonight from home so I wanted to get home and relax a little before getting started on that.

Tonight we decided to start watching Cheers again. It has been a few years since we last tried watching it. Dominica cooked dinner when I got home, which was not too late probably around seven, and we had a relatively relaxing night. She made sausage and peppers wraps.

In between work Liesl had Dominica come upstairs and join her for a “Monkey King Party.” Something that she learned about from watching Kai Lan. Both girls have been loving that show recently and we hear about it all of the time. Luciana seems to like watching it more, especially the final episode of Season One where there is a Baby Panda when Kai Lan visits China. Luciana tells me that the panda’s name is watermelon but I have my doubts that that information is coming through clearly.

Luciana has been demanding that we read “The Chronicles of Narnia” at night again. We’ve taken some time off just because we have been busy and because the girls sometimes want to go to bed early and use the iPads instead. But Luciana obviously misses the story time and tells me that I have to go up and read to them now.

I worked for a little while but it did not go on for very long, it was relatively light work. Then I had a call for a little while and then worked late getting some WordPress stuff built for myself and talking to some people online.

Normal work day. Tonight we had a large team outing after work. So I got to leave just a little bit early and we all went up to Wilton to go to a tequila bar there. It was, I think, a good turn out. I had some serrano pepper margaritas which were surprisingly good. Spicy and tasty. I have long liked the flavor of a Serrano pepper, it is much hotter but the flavor is way better than jalapeno. There was some good food too, really good guacamole, calamari, octopus and cheese.

It was nearly nine when I left Wilton and I tested the route home via CT 33 and NY 35 which is the route that I almost took my very first day going to the office nearly six months ago but ended up taking route 123 instead. This was a good route home and a really good option for when I am working in Wilton. I will get to test it out going the other direction next week, I suspect.

So it was late by the time that I got home but the girls were still awake and I got to hang out with them for a while before we put them to bed. It was a really nice evening, actually. Had a very good time with the crew from work and a nice couple hours with the family before going to bed.