Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 302, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

Eric is the big nine today!  I don’t think that I have forgotten his birthday since 1992.

I stayed home today so that I could coordinate getting dad to DFW to fly back to New York.  So we were home for a little while this morning but not too long as we had to leave before eleven to get him to the airport.

While I was out taking dad to the airport the new blinds arrived for the living room windows.  Perfect timing so that he wasn’t there to help us put them up.  🙁

Medifast Status: Day 301, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

I stayed home from work today as today is dad’s last full day in Texas so I wanted to make sure that I was able to visit with him.

I took dad up into the attic to show him the work that Art had done up there.  The last time that dad was here the attic was a disaster and unusable.  Now it is great.  Not finished like a room but tons of usable storage spaces, solid floors, etc.  It is a great attic.

While we were up there we started kicking around ideas of what we could do with the other half of the attic that had not been touched yet.  At first I thought that maybe putting in a “secret” office for myself might make sense.  Put a ladder somewhere like in Dominica and my master closet so that I could access it and have an office space tucked away there.  Then we had the idea that we could finish it, put in skylights and make it into a “secret lair” for the girls.  It is directly above their rooms and we could add a stairway in Luciana’s room for access.

The idea seemed kind of crazy as we were saying it but the more we thought about it the better of an idea it seemed.  It is wasted space as it is today.  We think that it might work really well for the girls.  It would give them just tons and tons of storage capacity and a place to put a “media center” that the could share.

So we went down and talked to Dominica about it and she thought that the idea was brilliant and that we should commit to moving forward on that straight away.  We also kicked around the idea of having Liesl and Luciana share a bedroom, this would be Luciana’s current room, and turning Liesl’s current room into a dedicated guest room.  Then the girls would share a sleeping space but have a two story room with tons of space in it.  It would make the house feel like we had another bedroom and be a lot more useful when people come to visit while giving the girls a lot more space and a means to get away from each other while in the same room too.  We are really liking this idea.  Better for the girls, better for the house.  Dominica has been hypothesizing that the girls will likely want to share a room anyway, at least during the years that we will be in this house.

For dinner tonight we went to Brookhaven for kids’ night.  Then it was quickly back home and we watched the fourth installment of Harry Potter.  By the end of this trip dad has now seen half of the Harry Potter movies and he was starting to get into them.  He even wanted us to wait to watch the last four until we could watch them all together.

I’ll be home tomorrow as I am coordinating getting dad to the airport to return to New York.

Medifast Status: Day 300, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)

Wow, day three hundred on Medifast.  It really does not seem like I started so long ago, but I guess that I did.  I’ve been dieting for Luciana’s entire life!

I was in the office today.  I had to get up and go in early-ish because I had my Medifast appointment this morning at nine in the morning.  So I went there before going in to the office.  That actually works pretty well so I think that I am going to be moving my appointments usually to early Monday mornings now.

After my appointment I swung in Panera next door to get some coffee as I did not have any this morning yet.  I got a free birthday pastry too, which I totally should not have, but it is for my birthday.

I picked up Panda Express on my way home and as soon as I got there we all settled in to watch the second installment of the Happy Potter movies, The Chamber of Secrets.  This time we watched with the subtitles on which made a huge difference.  It was also easier to follow since dad had now seen one of the movies already so had the basic premise of what was going on.

After we finished the first movie we decided to go straight on to the next installment, movie three The Prisoner of Azkaban.  Liesl hung out with us through all of the movies and, for the most part, really enjoyed them.  She really loves watching the Quidditch matches.

After the second movie it was pretty late so it was time to be off to bed.

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.