Sheep Guarding Llama

I was in the office today.  Nothing special, just another day.  After work I came home and helped Dominica get the girls out the door to go to kids’ night at Brookhaven Country Club.  We have been trying to coordinate going out to dinner with the Vielmas for several weeks and have not been able to pull it off.  Finally tonight Kim and the kids were able to meet us at Brookhaven for dinner.  Armando tried to make it but got stuck late at work so had to call off at the last second but at least the rest of us managed to get together.

We tried eating outside and thought that that would work well as there were so many of us (seven) but it was chillier than we had realized and no one, except me who plans better, was dressed warmly enough to be outside so we changed plans and ate inside instead.  I did a really good job and only had the really healthy blacked salmon salad tonight.  Kim and the kids seemed to really enjoy eating at the club too.  They had a good time.

I woke up nice and early this morning.  One of the few benefits to Daylight Savings Time.  Of course, Liesl and Luciana were up early as well.  So maybe it is not all that much of a benefit, lol.

I got into the office and Dominica was trying to schedule me to come home to watch the kids but we had both forgotten that I had a lunch appointment today.  Thank goodness for my online calendar that keeps me on track.

So after a long and productive morning (because I made it in early) I was off to North Richland Hills to have lunch with a friend from Spiceworks so that we could talk about Elastix-based PBXs and VoIP concerns that he has as he works on a VoIP migration for his company.  We got lunch at Ernie’s Seafood out there which is excellent.  I love their food there.  They are like a family dinner come seafood restaurant.  Good prices and excellent food in a casual setting.  I get the grilled salmon which is really tasty.

We had a good lunch meeting and I think that I was able to impart a lot of good information.  I earned my fish.

After work I came home for a bit and saw the family.  Then it was off to Las Colinas for ballroom dancing lessons.  I keep trying to get Dominica to go on Monday but she always sends me to do the lessons.  It is hard to get her out of the house even when I offer to stay home and watch the kids.

Ballroom is going well and I am teaching more and more of the time.

Another quiet weekend day at home with my girls.  Liesl got me up as she nearly always does and off to the play room so that she can have her morning chocolate milk and watch her shows.  She has quite the routine.

This morning I worked with her to show her how to turn on the television and the PS3 all by herself and how to navigate the menus.  She has been using the remote to control Netflix for a very long time already but she was not able to actually navigate the PS3 menus themselves before so this is a good step.  In theory she can turn everything on and watch things without us around now.

It was a slow day.  The time changed last night so we are well rested but the girls were up very early.

Liesl’s new show is “Jem and the Holograms” which is a horribly ridiculous 80s cartoon that Dominica used to watch when she was young.  I remember it but don’t remember having actually watched it.  Wow is it ever bad.  Luciana has mostly been watching “The Fresh Beat Band” or “Timmy Time.”

We started watching the BBC show “Sherlock” tonight which is created by Steven Moffat, one of our favourite television creators and one of the creative minds behind “Coupling” and the “Blink” episode of “Dr. Who”.  It is about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson but set in modern London instead of in Victorian London.  So far, quite good.  We made it through two episodes, which is nearly three hours of television, today.

I spent much of the day getting Zabbix up and running.  I have not worked with Zabbix before and there is a bit of work to get it running properly on CentOS 6 – especially when you want the latest features and so are compiling from scratch.

Luciana went to bed a little after eight.  She is still very good about putting herself to bed or letting us know that she is tired.  She is so good about bedtime.  Nothing like Liesl was at her age.

Liesl stayed up till nine thirty.  She is so funny about her bedtime stories.  She loves daddy reading to her at night.  I always have to read her her stories before she can go to sleep.  We sit on the floor of her bedroom and she picks what to read.  Either one long story from something like Winnie the Pooh or Lyle the Crocodile or three short stories from one of her story books.  For the last two weeks she has been on a kick to read stories from her big, blue story book.  She really loved “Harold and the Purple Crayon” and “Pete’s a Pizza.”  We read those almost every night.  She is also very fond of “Caps for Sale.”

Dominica went to bed at eleven thirty.  She was still pretty tired but not nearly as tired as yesterday.  After she went to bed I went out for a bit just to relax at Redneck.  It’s kind of like Cheers, for me.  They laughed when I said that the other day.  No one was around tonight, just me for a change.

After a week of being apart a bit much, this weekend is a “spend the whole weekend together as a family” weekend.  Dominica was feeling just totally exhausted last night so we let her sleep in this morning.  Liesl got me up at seven, as she does, but at least she hopped into bed and snuggled for a little bit before demanding to have her chocolate milk and movie.

Liesl, Luciana and I hung out together until after ten when Dominica finally got out of bed.  Hopefully she appreciates how much “sleeping in” I let her do.  Considering that I have to be up earlier than her four days of the week and at the same time as her the other day it can be a bit exhausting also being the one to get up early on the weekends too.  My mornings rarely extend past eight and often not past seven.

Mostly today was a family day.  I did a little work but we spent a lot of time just hanging out as a family.  Dominica left for a while this afternoon to go do some shopping and I stayed home with the girls.

 

Today is one of those days that completely escapes my memory.  I am over two weeks behind on SGL updates and doing my best but today, I just don’t know.  I know that I was in the office today, that Dan and I did lunch together and that tonight I just stayed home with the family since we were all out of town all week.  But honestly, that is all that I know.  So, there it is.