Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 299, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

Today is Sunday and my last open day at home while dad is down visiting.

Dad spent a bit of time today working on our furnace.  We know that it has problems and he was investigating to see what could potentially be done about the issues with it being unable to keep up with our air conditioning needs during the winter.  He took it all apart and did a bunch of investigation.  Overall he determined that it seems to be working just fine and there just isn’t enough air conditioning power to handle the load that our house demands.  He did do some work on the unit so maybe it will work a little better.

For dinner this evening we went out to Rockfish in Las Colinas.  We had dinner and had meant to go out shopping at Fry’s after dinner because dad wanted to see this place that everyone talks about but the girls were very tired and were not going to be happy being out any longer so we bailed on that idea and brought them back home instead.

This evening we convinced dad to give Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone a try on BluRay.  He has never seen any of the movies or read any of the books and had only the vaguest idea of what they were about.  So we settled in and Liesl joined us for the rather long movie.  Dominica popped popcorn on the stove for us to eat while we watched.

We made the mistake of not having closed captioning on for this movie which made it really hard for dad to follow – mostly because Liesl insists on making noise all of the time and it is pretty much impossible to hear half of anything that you watch over her.

Overall dad liked the movie.  He didn’t love it or anything but he seemed to enjoy it.

 

Medifast Status: Day 298, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

Yup, today is my birthday and I am thirty six years old.   I’m starting to feel a little older.  Dad certainly feels a lot older today.  Seeing me turn 36 and seeing my two little girls running around the house (well, Liesl runs and Luciana crawls nearly as quickly) has really got to make him feel a lot older.  Sorry dad 😉

We got moving pretty slowly this morning.  Around half past noon we headed out to take the girls out to Dallas to the museums.  The weather is really beautiful today and it is our opportunity for a complete family outing.  I was quite excited to learn that we are able to take the train all the way from home to Fair Park where the museums are.  Very cool.  It is very odd that I have managed to travel into Dallas two days in a row via the train when I have gone so long without having an opportunity to ride it at all.

Liesl especially really enjoyed riding on the train.  This was Dominica’s first time really seeing the DART let alone riding it.  She was impressed by how low stress and easy to use it was.  Hopefully she will feel that she is able to use it after this.

The train ride proved to be highly cost effective and easy.  No changing trains or anything.  Just a straight shot through to the far side of Dallas.  We bought round trip tickets which are technically not the cheapest option but for an extra fifty cents each we had the options of riding anytime, not needing to buy tickets later and having hop on, hop off service all day long.  For the family to go all that distance was just twelve dollars for the whole day.  The DART is awesome.

We got to Fair Park and took the girls first to the natural history museum.  We were not there long as it is very small and really lacks much to interest the girls (or anyone, I would say.)  It was almost entirely a collection of local animals that had paid an unfortunate visit to the taxidermist.

Next we went to the science museum which was much better.  There was a play area for Luciana and several kids areas that worked well for Liesl.  They both had a ton of fun playing.  Dad and Dominica took Luciana and I took Liesl for much of the museum.

We grabbed a snack for lunch before leaving.  Then, on the way out of Fair Park, Liesl spent some time attempting to climb the large mammoth statue by shimmying up its trunk.  She did not get very far.

This evening Dominica ran out and met Joe as he was delivering down the rest of the stuff that they had been working on last night.

Dominica was being sneaky and had actually gotten Joe to make me some really cool stuff for my birthday.  Dominica got me an engraved wine kit with my monogram on it and two engraved bottles of a cabernet frank blend (she was unable to find pure cabernet frank here in Texas.)  It is really cool.  Joe also made for me a wine glass set of four wine glasses each with an M engraved into them.  Dominica definitely managed to surprised me with this!

My other birthday present that I get in a month is Dominica taking me to see one of my all time favourite bands, Pink Martini, play in Dallas.  They are playing downtown so we are planning on taking the train down to make it all nice and easy.  Plus getting to ride the train is a little bit of a treat as well.

Medifast Status: Day 297, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

It is Friday so I needed to go in to the office today.

I couldn’t come home at lunch today because I needed to use that time to go down to the Dallas County records building and require Luciana’s birth certificate.  Texas does not give these out and waits for you to request them.  We need it in order to get her her passport so that she can come with us to Europe which is happening pretty soon.

Work was busy and I was unable to leave the office until one.  I drove to the Royal train station on the Green Line and caught the train going downtown from there.  Taking the DART to downtown is way easier than driving and parking down there.

I got to the records office and everything was going quickly and smoothly until… they couldn’t find any record of Luciana!!  Oh boy.  I called Dominica to let her know.  It was a good thing that she could not come through the phone to throttle someone because she surely would have done so.

After a bit they were able to get confirmation that the records office with the state in Austin had Luciana in the system so at least she exists and is documented.  I got stuck waiting for about forty-five minutes while they worked with the state offices to attempt to get the records released to Dallas County and to them be able to print and certify them in the county office.  There were many calls to Dominica during this time during which she was ready to jump on a train and come down to the office herself.  Best that we kept that as a backup option.

It took quite some time but by the end of the day we had all of the necessary paperwork in hand.  Back on the train and back to the office for me.

This evening, after work, I got home and no one really felt like doing much of anything.  It came up that there is a Latin Seafood restaurant right down the street from the house.  And I mean right down the street.  So close that it is a trivial walk, even with strollers.  And on flat ground.  With sidewalks the whole way.  I mean it doesn’t get much closer.  We’ve been seeing this restaurant for a long time but never remember it when we are ready to eat.  It is in a really weird location and we just never think of it.

So tonight I mentioned it and dad said that he would like to try it out.  So we headed on over.  We took the car because it was late and there were so many of us.  Often, I suspect, we will just walk, though.  That is just too convenient.  It is literally half the distance of walking to our local Peruvian restaurant or pizza place both of which I have walked to previously.

The restaurant was pretty slow for a Friday night.  I wonder how they stay in business.  We were concerned that they would not be able to handle customers in English but our waitress spoke decent English and it wasn’t bad.

The food was very good.  Dominica was quite surprised when her dinner consisted of an entire fish – as in, a fish looking at her while she ate it.  Getting head-on fish is not something taht we are used to.  But the food was all very good.  We really enjoyed it.  It turns out that this is actually a Salvadorean restaurant.  We are discovering that there is a lot more Salvadorean food around us that we would have guessed.  This is likely going to turn into one of our usual spots.  Nice to have some serious variety.

This evening Dominica went out to work with Joe on getting some ntg.co swag made so that dad can ship it back to New York with his stuff to get it to Danielle.  The big item that I know is being made is an orange rhinestone t-shirt (orange rhinestones on a black t-shirt) for Danielle to wear.  I am not sure what other stuff she is having made.

Dominica ended up being out really late working on the swag stuff so Oreo and I ended up staying up really late too and I was super exhausted when we finally went off to bed.  The t-shirt looks really cool and Dominica had a bag made too with the same logo also in rhinestones.  I think that Danielle is going to be really excited.

Dominica needs to go back tomorrow because she did not manage to get everything completed that she needed to do tonight.  It was just too late.

Medifast Status: Day 296, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

Today is dad’s first full day in Texas for 2012.  Now he gets the full Miller children experience.

I stayed home from work today so that I could hang out with dad and the family.  I ended up having a really busy day so did not have as much time to hang out as I had wanted but really dad is here to see the girls and Liesl absolutely demands all of his available time.

Dad helped to measure and look into options for blinds for our front living room windows.  We have three large, oddly shaped living room windows that face both the street and to the south meaning that they are our primary compromise for privacy as well as being our primary windows for daylight.  When we first moved into the house there were ugly, broken vertical blinds hanging there but when we painted we just ripped those down knowing that under no conditions were we going to be happy putting those back up again.

So today we looked at several options and finally decided on getting custom double cell blinds for those windows. We really want to get cell blinds to help with the insulation because the house just gets crazy hot in the summers and anything that we can do to improve that is going to make a really big difference for the quality of living in our home.  Last summer the house could not keep itself cool even with the house air conditioner running effectively around the clock and the portable air conditioner in the play room keeping it cooler right where people were sitting.

We already replaced the window in Dominica and my bedroom which was a big point of heat entry during the summer (also southern exposure) so we hope that that will help.  Getting good insulating blinds up in the living room and play room, we hope, will make a massive difference there.  None of our windows are well insulated at all and last summer we had no means of directly blocking the sunlight entering the house either.  The attic insulation is a tiny bit better this year too.  Fingers crossed.

We will be doing a few additional heat-handling projects before the Texas summer hits but the blinds are the big ticket item for this year.  We really need them to make a big difference.  Last summer was insane.

Medifast Status: Day 295, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

We were pretty tired this morning.  The last several days have really been exhausting as we tried to get the house ready for this week and then had the huge SpiceCorps even last night that went until one in the morning.

I had to go to the office today.  I definitely do not want to stay home the day that dad arrives in Texas, that would be a silly time to burn my “at home” time.  So I was in the office all day.

I went home for lunch and helped Dominica with some of the house prep.  There is a lot of clean up to do from the event last night.  That was a lot of people for our little house to handle!

Dad was scheduled to get into DFW on Delta around six so it seemed to just make sense for me to work late and to go directly to the airport from there.  My office is a bit closer to the airport than the house and if I went home I would just be driving in rush hour in time to get there, sit down and immediately leave.

Dad ended up arriving early and I was still in the office when he called!  Oops.  Normally it takes so long to get on the tarmac, taxi, disembark and get to the pick up area that I figured that I had lots and lots of time.  Nope.  Dad was already on his way outside when he called.  So I ran out of the office and drove out to the airport as quickly as I could.  From my office cubicle to Terminal E at DFW is about twenty-five minutes for me.

I picked up dad and we drove back home swinging in to Panda Express on the way.  I have a feeling that dad has been craving Panda Express since he left Texas nine months ago.

We took food back to the house and ate while sitting around the play room.  We did pretty much nothing tonight.  We are all very tired.  Dad especially after his flight.  It went well, though.  He made good time and had a moderate layover in Detroit.  I think that he is happy with the weather that was waiting for him in Texas.  It was really nice and it was snowing, I believe, in Detroit as he went through.