Sheep Guarding Llama

Today was non-farm payroll so I was up early and in the office.  At least the financial outlook was really good this month.

Dominica emailed me mid-morning to say that she got to experience the crazy pounding from next door as well and the house was shaking all morning.

For lunch today Doue and I went to Brookhaven.  He has never been there before, nor to any of the country clubs.  He was pretty impressed.  We had a really nice lunch and he is hoping that we come back there again soon.

I got stuck working really late again this week.  Dominica had the car packed and ready to go to Houston but I didn’t wrap up with work until eight.  We left home at a quarter after eight and had to stop at Target before leaving town.  I stayed in the car with the girls and Dominica just ran in to do quick shopping to be ready for the party tomorrow.

The drive south went fine. Being as late as it was there was pretty minimal traffic.  But it was very late so we were all really tired.  It was a quarter till two in the morning when we pulled into the Grices’ and got into bed.

Tons of pounding at the house next door.  No idea what is going on but our house is just shaking and shaking.  I am really concerned about our foundation with the amount of work going on.  I ran outside to try to figure out what was going on.  From the looks of it, I am pretty sure that the next door neighbours are having their inground pool removed.  They have a swimming pool that takes up their entire back yard.  We know the size of our yard and that any pool would consume the entire thing and from Google satellite view we can see that that appears to be the case next door.  I guess that they are tired with it so the huge jack hammer machines are pounding the slab apart I guess.

I was on a call this morning at eight talking about a storage training class project.  The pounding next door was so violent that my monitors were shaking and flickering and it was hard to talk on the call.

After my call was done I was in to the office.

After work we went to Brookhaven for dinner.  And a quiet night at home.

Just a little time left for my classes at RIT.  Classes end officially in nine days and my stuff wraps up in seventeen.  The home stretch for classes now.  I can’t wait for this to be done.

Was at the office today.  Normal day, nothing special.  Dominica was home with the girls.  I saw them before I left to go into the office but wouldn’t get to see them the rest of the day.

I ran out to Subway with Dan and Doue to grab quick food before the Federal Open Market support call at one.  We had wanted to really go out for lunch today but couldn’t work it around the FOMC call.

I got out of the office a little early and drove up past the airport up to Southlake where I have never been previously.  It’s amazing how much of the DFW I have still never seen.  I went out there to go to the Alt-N party going on at “The Castle” on White Chapel.  I was quite impressed to find that it actually did look like a castle.  Twenty five thousand square feet!  It was a very cool party.  We had dinner and drinks.  There were probably fifty to seventy people there.  Fully catered and bartended.  I had dinner with a group from Italy, Holland, Spain and Germany.

Later on in the evening Kim and Armando made it out and hung out for a while.

The party was a good time, I’m really glad that I went.  Met a lot of great people.

I can’t believe that April is already come and gone.  Another year flying by.  I only really notice time passing when I get behind on SGL.

My morning was quite busy and I did not manage to get into the office until after lunch.  This morning Dominica took Luciana to her checkup with the doctor.  She is maintaining something like the 87% percentile in height (can you believe that?!?) and like the 35% percentile in weight.  Overall she is very healthy and she got an immunization today.  Both girls got “Groovy” temporary tattoos from the doctors office.

Dad sent me a link and I saw some people talking on Facebook about the new Spiderman film that is filming in Rochester currently.  They are pretending that Rochester is New York City and are shooting NYPD chase scenes there.  I saw a picture of a Daily Bugle newspaper truck parked on the street there.

Worked at the office this afternoon.  Got stuck just a little late before heading home but not bad.  Got home and hung out with Dominica and the girls for a while.  Dominica made salads for dinner and we ate while watching Rules of Engagement which isn’t too bad.  We have not seen it before.

Spent a lot of time playing with the girls tonight and then they decided to go hide in our bedroom and watch shows together before going to bed.

The girls came into my office for a while and danced for about an hour tonight.  They love it when I turn on my computer’s speakers and stream music from our Amazon account.

Luciana continues to love her new bed.  She gets up in the morning and Liesl goes and gets her now.  Luciana can get in and out of bed without any problem but can’t open her bedroom door from the inside because Dominica put a protector on the handle.  So she calls and Liesl goes to get her up.  Very cool that Liesl helps out with that.

Did some work but not too much and was off to bed at a pretty decent time.  Played a little Tales from Monkey Island: Chapter 1 before falling asleep.  Dominica discovered some weird strategy game on her iPhone called Plants versus Zombies or something to that effect and was playing that all evening.  We have a Steam account loaded with amazing games and this is what she plays sitting at her desk!

I am in the office tomorrow and after work I am heading to Southlake to hang out with Alt-N.

The second podcast from Kidding Around Europe is finally up.  This one covers our arrival in the UK a full year ago.

It is Monday morning and I am home with the girls.  Dominica is at work today.  Liesl is very excited that she is now tall enough to be able to reach the light switch in our bedroom.  She can’t reach the fan switch yet, but she can turn the main light on and off.  It is a whole new era of Liesl self sufficiency.

Ciana spent a bit of time playing in the shower today.  She loves taking showers.  She sits near the faucet and played with buckets and a water can and rubber duckies that Liesl has collected over the years.

We had our kitchen sink clog on us completely this evening.  So when it wouldn’t clear I had to make a Walmart run for drain cleaning chemicals as we had none.  Gave it an attempt but it didn’t get the drain cleared tonight.  Will need to see if the garbage disposal can force the water through tomorrow.

This evening Dominica and I managed to record the next two podcasts for KAE.  One that I linked above and another that I hope to have up in the next three days on our time in Nottingham.

Got to bed not too late tonight.  Need to catch up on my sleep.  Was tired all day.