Sheep Guarding Llama

Dominica had to get up and go to work this morning as it is Monday.  She is working today and tomorrow this week because we are traveling out to California on Wednesday night (flying out of Houston) so she had to change up her schedule a bit.  She is going to have a skewed schedule next week too.

I had to be in the office today so I drove the girls up to Corinth for daycare this morning.  That is an exhausting process.  Just getting them ready is hard enough and then the drive all of the way up there and then back to the office takes more than an hour.  It really makes it hard to get anything done.

Phillip Moya was in town teaching a SpiceU class in Irving today so Watson and I met up with him and several of the guys from the City of Irving who were taking the classes at El Fenix in irving.  That would have been a lot of fun but just as I was arriving Dominica had an emergency come up at work and needed me to  be on the phone for most of the meal and then instead of going back to check out the class I had to race back to the office so that I could assist them in fixing the issue.  Dominica had a really stressful day.

This evening, when  I got home, I brought home Subway knowing that Dominica was stressed out and had had a very long day.  We picked up  on the second half of The Two Towers and watched the last half of The Lord of the Rings on BluRay.  It has been nearly a decade, we are guessing, since we last watched the movies.  Neither of us can remember having watched them since we left Geneseo and I know that we have not watched them in a really long time because we never bought them on BluRay and have been avoiding watching them on DVD because we knew that we would be disappointed.  So our guess is that we watched in probably twice in Geneseo, around 2005, and have probably not seen it since.

I had to be up really early this morning to do work for the office.  Got up around six.

Today was our family day, our last real day all together before Dominica and I head out to California for the weekend.  It is Sunday and I had to work a lot of the day so it wasn’t all relaxing but it wasn’t too bad and I am going to be working remotely much of this week so it kind of turned out well that I worked all weekend and Friday is a holiday.

There was a lot to do today beyond spending time with the family.  What a busy week we have coming.

Liesl did a lot of playing with her new Wii games.  She is so good at them and is really loving having the games in her bedroom.  It is a whole new activity opportunity for her.

The whole family slept in this morning.  Luciana came and hung out in bed with Dominica and I around eight thirty and just snuggled and talked for a bit before I got paged from the office at nine.  The weekend team wasn’t responding and work that was supposed to have started hours before had not started so I had to get up, get dressed and go to work on what was supposed to be my only day off all week.

I ended up working what was nearly a full day putting in around six hour.  Ridiculous.

I ran out this morning and picked up donuts for the family because Dominica was begging for them.  So I grabbed the largest box of books that was left and took it with me, dropping it off at the post office on the way.  That leaves just two small boxes left from the entire support and hopefully I can take them to work on Monday and be done with that part of our lives.  So many books!

This afternoon Dominica took Liesl out shopping.  They went grocery shopping and video game shopping.  The Nintendo Wii in Liesl’s room is proving to be really perfect for her.  She is challenged by attempting to use it but she is learning how to do so quickly and is really excited to have access to it.  And it makes us happy that we are finally getting use out of that old thing too.  This is the most that it has ever been used.  We are definitely now wondering  if Liesl might need a large screen in her bedroom.  We will see how she does this year with the Wii.  Maybe for Christmas it will be time for her to get a screen so that she doesn’t have to stand so close and look so hard to see what is on the screen.  If she keeps using it all year, I am sure that we will be going that route.  I suspect that Dominica will be thinking WiiU at that point too.  They bought three new video games for the Wii.  One is a Disney dancing game, one is the Nickelodeon Fit exercise game and one is a Dora the Explorer Snow Princess game.  A lot of the Wii games are designed around getting you active so we are really thrilled that Liesl will be getting exercise and doing something interactive as well.  It’s perfect.  And she can do it in her room which is making it easier to have strict “keeping her room clean” rules as well as letting her do things away from her sister (they need time apart and it is hard to do) as well as keeping the noise levels down for Dominica and I.

On their way back, Dominica and Liesl got Subway for dinner.  It’s funny how we never really used to like Subway and now we love it.

If you have ever wondered how the date of Easter is calculated, here you go: http://www.jimloy.com/math/easter.htm

Liesl spent the afternoon playing games in her room.  She probably played her Fit game for two hours almost.  And then she played her Dora Snow Princess game for a while too.  That one, while not officially a physical game, still works out well as Liesl likes to stand while playing it since she has to rock the controller around.

Liesl’s flowers are continuing to grow really well too.  They are over an inch tall already!

It’s Friday.  Last day of work, but another long one.  I have another migration this evening of a cluster like I did last Friday night.  I am hoping that that doesn’t mean that I am in the office as late as I was last time.  That was a really late night.

It is a little bit cooler out today, jacket weather again.  Dominica’s back is still bothering her.  My left ankle is really bothering me.  The tendon is having all kinds of problems.

I ended up having another really long day. I worked for thirteen hours in the office today and was pretty busy all day long.  It was an exhausting day.  I had to work through lunch too.  I ran out at three thirty and grabbed Subway quickly to bring back to the office and eat quickly at my desk while doing the evening deployments.

I had been thinking that we would get out early tonight but it was after nine when I finally left.

I got home and we put on Community for a bit.  Luciana was already asleep in bed when I got home for a full hour.  Liesl stayed up with us until way too late.

I am scheduled to have to work a bit on Sunday.  But as we are going away next week, not such a big deal.

Dominica was up early today as she is working.  I got up and started working at seven.  Lots to be done, no sleeping in for me.

I had a productive morning and I am feeling good about getting on top of work stuff.  Still way behind but making really excellent progress.  Next week is going to be crazy with all of the travel.

I had a really good day with the girls today.  I hadn’t realized that Dominica was going to be working a full day today so had only planned to be home for the morning.

Liesl and Luciana were so good today.  They were quiet and played together much of the day.  They entertain each other far more than they used to.  Luciana has taken to opening the back door and going outside to play in the sandbox all by herself.  It is pretty funny.  Liesl would never have done that.  She would have always gotten us to let her out and make sure that it was okay first.

At one point Luciana got stuck up on Liesl’s bunk bed and Liesl called me across the house to come help get her down (she is great at going up the ladder but not so good at going down it.)  I asked Liesl why Luciana was stuck up there and Liesl explained: “She went up there to get me my blankets.  I asked her to.  That’s what friends do, they help each other.”

Dominica’s back is still hurting but not as bad today.  She was able to get through work okay and it was a long day.  She did not get home until nearly six.

We watched more of Community tonight and the girls decided to spend the evening together in our room doing their own thing.  They are so funny.  Sometimes they are all over us and need constant attention.  Other times they just want to be on their own and not even know that we are around.  Today was a super quiet day for Liesl.  Once in a while she will just have a “spend time alone watching television” day.  I don’t know what triggers it but instead of her normal crazy self she will just do something quiet all day.  I barely knew that she was even around.  And that was after she started the day by running into my office and telling me how much energy she had.

Luciana was in a weird mood and took two showers today.

Liesl went and checked on her little princess greenhouse and was so excited to report that several of the plants had already begun to grow today!  I am surprised as I was not expecting to see anything until Monday at the earliest.  This was really fast.  Liesl thinks that this is very, very cool.  This is a good educational experience for her too.

Liesl played her Wii some today too.  She is loving having that in her room and she is slowly learning how to operate it so that she does not need us to do it for her.  It won’t be long and she will be needing a bigger screen in there and a WiiU with the latest games.  It will be neat when she and Luciana are old enough to play things like Mario Kart racing against each other.