Sheep Guarding Llama

Wednesday. Today is the HomeSchool book club at the library, so the girls have to get ready for that much of the morning. A normal work day for me.

Book club went well, the girls had fun. And they arranged to get together with friends on Friday, and again on Valentine’s Day. They learned about “secret codes” while at their book club.

This evening Paul needed to practice for a new master’s league that he is going to start playing in tomorrow night. So the girls and I went and got Taco Bell and spent the evening watching Full House together. It has been a seriously snuggly week for me. I’m getting loads and loads of time hanging out with Liesl and Luciana.

Tuesday. This morning I was supposed to attend jury duty in Carrollton, my first anywhere, ever. But I was struggling to remember what I had to do today and did not remember that it was jury duty until noon! Oops. I called in immediately, though, and found out that had I called in last night like I was supposed to, I would have learned that we had been canceled for today and I need not have worried. So once again, no jury duty for me.

It was a slow work day, surprisingly slow. I only barely had enough going on to even keep me at my desk. I considered taking a break, but every so often there would be something and I would need to return, so making not being at my desk not quite worth it.

The girls had a fight over something today and Luciana threw the Amazon Tap at Liesl’s head. So Liesl was a little sore and Luciana was in big trouble. She lost all of her devices today and is stuck doing things with the family all evening.

Luciana decided to just lay down in my room in the middle of the afternoon and ended up falling asleep. She slept for probably an hour, got up to check on us, then went back and fell asleep again for several hours. All in all, she probably got five hours of extra nap time in. Apparently she really needed it.

Kat needed more cookie supplies and they all wanted to see some awful super hero movie that I certainly would not be willing to sit through, so Paul, Dominica, and Kat all went out to the movies for a bit.

Tomorrow is HomeSchool Book Club at the Carrollton library. Luciana read her book during the day. She read her Swedish vegetable folklore book that we own, the one that Liesl has a stuffed broccoli to match, both from IKEA many years ago.

After work was done and school was done for Liesl, Liesl went to her bedroom and read her entire book, one about dolphins who needed a human to rescue their baby, so that she would be ready for her book club tomorrow.

Then we watched Brooklyn Nine Nine for a while. I made us hamburgers for dinner. Once Luciana woke up she came out and we played Nancy Drew and the Phantom of Venice for an hour or two.

Monday. It is a warm one today, almost eight degrees! It is so nice to have the windows open again and fresh air. We have been needing to air out the house a bit.

I worked all day, nothing to report there. Then after the girls were done with school and I was able to sneak away from my desk we went to the playground to get them out and running around. The weather was so nice.

Of course the playground was packed full. They played until it was dark and most of the kids were leaving. I did my DuoLingo while we were waiting. I am finally into the “home stretch” of the final lessons to test out of to finally have completed all of the DuoLingo Spanish stuff. It is so much, I have been just “testing out” for something like six months now!

The girls had fun but did not make any new friends or know anyone already there so were less than enthusiastic overall. But at least there was an hour or more of exercise.

On the way home we stopped at Taco Bell. The nacho fries are back and Luciana likes those, at least. We got our food to go and drove back to the house getting back just before Paul and Dominica were going to head out to play some pool. Paul has to practice for league, tomorrow.

The girls and I watched Full House while we ate our dinner. Eventually Luciana left to do her own thing, so Liesl and I watched Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Sunday. I watched more of Geography Now! today. They are now up to Namibia. Hard to believe that it has been going for so long and that is all of the farther that they have gotten! There are a lot of countries.

This afternoon the girls and I played more of “Anyway You Slice It”, the Golden Girls board trivia game. It is so funny that they like to play that.

Kat came over just after two. She and Dominica are working on a cookie making project for Kat’s students today. Trying to teach cellular biology using cookies and candy.

We did a cheese tray for snacks while they were working on the cookies. For dinner I made a run out to Taco Bell and picked up dinner. Liesl always is very happy when we do that. And the Nacho Fries are back, which Luciana really likes.

It is super warm today, windows have been open all day and the house is over seventy degrees! It is crazy how we went from nearly freezing to almost needing air conditioning in just a day or two. I guess winter is over and we made it without a broken pipe or a flake of snow seen, not even frost.

Liesl and I watched Brooklyn Nine Nine together for the afternoon. We took over the Ikea couch in my room and just hung out together. Luciana came in and joined us after a few hours and we all watched Full House together until it was time to go to bed which wasn’t until around one in the morning. It was a very snuggling evening, both girls were curled up on the couch with me all evening.

Liesl and I watched Brooklyn Nine Nine together for the afternoon. We took over the Ikea couch in my room and just hung out together. Luciana came in and joined us after a few hours and we all watched Full House together until it was time to go to bed which wasn’t until around one in the morning. It was a very snuggling evening, both girls were curled up on the couch with me all evening.

The weather is supposed to be even warmer tomorrow. I promised Luciana that I would take her to the playground. So that is on the schedule for tomorrow.

Saturday. Luciana got up “early” and came into our room and asked if we could run to the Guatemalan bakery this morning to get pastries. She asks all of the time, but normally in the afternoon after it is way too late to go. Liesl just wanted to stay in bed. So Dominica, Luciana, and I got up and drove down to Belt Line to go to the bakery.

Luciana got four pieces of her favourite “sprinkly cake”, two concha so that she could share with Liesl, Dominica got something like popovers, I got something akin to a Nepolian, one “elote” thing, and some meringues. So that was our breakfast.

It was a quit trip but the bakery makes the girls so happy, especially Luciana. She absolutely loves getting to go there. She really has a taste for the style of breads there. Perhaps because she was at just the right influential age living in places like Spain and Nicaragua and getting so exposed to this stuff that now it is something that she looks for.

It is a lot warmer today. While the north is still buried in snow, we are already into the high fifties today and the house was nearly seventy degrees today even without the heater running! It’s the first time in quite a while that I did not need to wear my fleece in the house. And it is great to not have the furnace kicking on all throughout the day.

I spent a bit of time watching YouTube videos today, mostly Geography Now! which I really like. I was half relaxing and half doing research on Middle Africa. Liesl was in the room watching something on her iPad, so I put on my Bluetooth Plantronics headset and watched that way so as not to disturb her since Luciana was in their room watching YouTube and playing video games and Dominica, as always, has the living room watching some television show that no one else has any interest in (some random medical show now, I have no idea what the name of it is.)

Liesl decided to join me when I made her lunch. She had New England Clam Chowder and some bread. So I put on Family Matters on Hulu and we watched that for a bit.

Later on Liesl got tired of Family Matters and we decided to restart Brooklyn 99 for her so that she could start at the beginning and know what is going on. She loves the show but only sees it from time to time in the fourth season so doesn’t really know the characters and I think that she would like it even more if we started from the beginning. So that was our evening. Luciana never really felt like joining us, so spent pretty much the whole day on her on in her room doing her own thing.

Kat was supposed to hang out tonight but at the last minute had to cancel.

Late in the evening, both Liesl and Luciana wanted to play some board games. So we started with “Sorry!” which I have never played before. I really hate these kinds of games. This one is not technically purely random, but it is nearly so. There is just the tiniest bit of strategy to it, and I really mean tiny. I won, neither girl felt like playing again. It went pretty quickly.

Then we played “Any way you slice it”, the Golden Girls board game that Dominica got for Christmas. I won that one quickly, too. But both girls did pretty well, they really know their Golden Girls! Getting points in the game wasn’t all that fun, so we just played some fun Golden Girls trivia for a while and really enjoyed that.

I made myself some late dinner, I had New England Clam Chowder and bread just like Liesl did earlier. Then got the girls off to bed.