Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 209, Down ~70lbs

I can’t believe that my little baby girl turns three years old today!  She is growing up so quickly.  It makes me sad to see these years slipping past.  Soon my little girls will be old and moving away.  It seems like it must take a very long time but it really happens just so quickly.

Dominica got up this morning and found that the Grices had snuck away like thieves in the night taking all of the furniture with them and not saying a world.  Dominica had gotten up around seven in the morning to check on them and found the house empty.  That was actually very nice because we then got to sleep in rather than getting up and helping to load their vehicles like we had planned to do.  Later in the day Francesca emailed to say that she remembered that she had not said goodbye right as the door shut and locked and it was too late as they were locked out of the house.

Dominica got Liesl’s birthday presents from dad all put into gift bags and piled them up in the middle of the living room floor.  The living room is almost completely empty except for the hanging plants, the Christmas tree that Dominica put up on Friday, the two chairs and some random stuff in boxes that we need to clean up.  The Grices took a lot of stuff including my old music stand that I used in high school and college because Madeline needs to use it.  Madeline is borrowing Epic Mickey too and Francesca is borrowing And Then There Were None, both for the Wii.  Now they just need to dig out their Wii and get it hooked up.

Liesl slept in for a while and woke up to a bright sunny morning.  She ran out to discover her presents and we sang “Happy Birthday” to her.  She loved opening up her presents.  Dad got her the Sunshine curriculum for her preschool (I believe that I got that name correct) which is full of books and puzzles for her.  She got just tons and tons of books.  There was a lot for her to open.  These are good books that we will not be storing in her bedroom but nice ones that she will have to ask to read and that we will read together.  She really liked her new puzzles too which included a bear matching game and a shapes puzzle that I cannot explain very well.

Once everything was opened Liesl called dad to say thank you for the books and puzzles but was so excited that she really could not talk about it.  She quickly ran through the house with the phone and I was just able to hear “thank you for the books and puzzles” but after that she was just running around like crazy – too excited to get to start playing with her new stuff.

Liesl and I laid down on the living room floor and spent a long time playing with her new shapes puzzle together.  She did really well at understanding how the puzzle worked and doing it with me.  She really enjoyed it and I can see how this will be good for her mental development.  This is a great “toy”.

I spent a lot of time with the girls today.  The house is empty and quiet – empty both of people and of furniture.  None of us wanted to do anything today.  We just wanted to sit and relax at home.  So we did.  We have no food in the house so I did make one run out to Panda Express and grabbed takeout and returned home to eat it, but that was it.  No extra trips anywhere if it could be helped.  We needed time to recharge.

I have Oblivion installed on the PS3 in our bedroom which is not convenient for hanging out with the family so instead I popped in Dragon Age: Origins and, when I had free time, I played that a little bit.  I had played the game “to completion” a long time ago.  Maybe two years ago.  Since that time new expansion packs came out for it but that was after I was done playing the game and did not have the time to get back into it again.  So I never ended up playing them.  Today felt like a good day to return to DAO and wrap things up.

I have two expansion packs that I care about playing through and two that I do not.  The ones that I do not care about are the Golems of Amgarrak expansion and the Darkspawn Chronicles expansion.  I might, someday, decide that I am bored and come back to play these two but one, DC, is completely outside of the scope of my existing characters so I don’t care about that much and Amgarrak is supposed to be super hard and is basically outside of my main game characters’ scope – plus Dominica is partway through that one already so I am leaving it to her.

The expansion packs that I do care about are Leliana’s Song which takes place before the events at the beginning of DAO and deals with Leliana’s backstory and as she was one of the four party members that I focused on having her back story is really nice.  It was short, maybe two and a half hours to play through.  These expansion packs are certainly not big but they do add something to the game play and make the characters that much deeper.

The other expansion pack, the one that I was the most serious about, was Witch Hunt which follows the story of Morrigan who was, by far, the most critical character in my own game of DAO.  I was disappointed by how short the expansion was and how little it actually focused on Morrigan.  It did expand the game world slightly and added some intrigue and provided a little closure to a key in-game relationship but the entire dialogue with Morrigan, the key character, was probably less than one hundred words and might have been a lot less.  No real details were provided and you are still left wondering what has and will happen.  I’m hoping that Dragon Age II will answer some of that but I am not too hopeful.

So that wraps up Dragon Age Origins for me.  I’ve played all of the main game and all of the expansion packs that I intend to play.  The game was absolutely amazing and remains one of my five best games of all time and might actually be my number one.  Fable II and Dragon Quest VIII are the other top contenders.  My plan now is to get started on Dragon Age II which we have owned for about a year and Dominica has only just begun to get to play.  Overall I don’t think that she was liking it nearly as much as the original title which she had been completely addicted to.  That she was able to put DA2 down at all means that she was not as in to it.  I’m hoping to at least get started with it this week.

Medifast Status: Day 208, Down ~70lbs

Ah Saturday.  And a holiday Saturday so there is nothing scheduled with the office and very little pressing on my time.  At least nothing that cannot wait until Monday.  I am pretty much taking this weekend off and doing nothing, which I really need.

I put in a bit of garage and attic time this morning.  I did a bit of cleaning out there and moved a lot of stuff up into the attic.  I threw out some junk that we didn’t need anymore and found some stuff that we had been missing in bins including my two good Yamaha recorders which Emily was happy to see since she is playing the recorder at school.

Bennie and I ran out to Home Depot this morning and got shelf mounting supplies.  He then mounted our media shelf onto the wall in the play room so that we can move the television stand out of there.  Now there is a ton more floor space and the room feels like it is really opened up.  It looks so much better and the PS3, XBOX 360 and Wii all fit up there just fine too.  So much better.  Now  I have to move the television stand up into the attic.

Madeline spent most of the day playing Epic Mickey on the Wii.  She is really enjoying it and it is nice to see her playing a “real” video game.  It has a decent story and a lot of people cycled through the room watching her play.  Finally the Wii is actually getting some use.

So today I managed to get some time in playing Oblivion.  Some real time that is.  Maybe as much as three hours.  I managed to close out a number of quests and can see the light at the end of the tunnel, sort of.  There is more left of the game than I had realized, I think, but nothing that I can’t knock out in about ten hours, I hope.  I am trying to be a bit systematic and work through it methodically and just get it done.  I would feel bad leaving stuff uncompleted but I don’t want to waste time either.  I’ve seen all of the Oblivion scenery that I need to see at this point and just want to get it done and move on.  I think that I will move on to Assassin’s Creed which I have had on the back burner for three years.

Before everyone turned in for the night we tore apart all of the theatre furniture in the living room.  Bennie was going to load it all up in his truck and take it down to Houston today but we ended up with some horrible weather and he was unable to do that so we just got it staged by the door tonight so that they can take it out in the morning.  The house is going to be really empty after this.

After everyone went to bed, Dominica and I stayed up for a little bit in the play room and she worked on the computer and I started playing Infamous which we got free as a download when Sony had that issue when all of our accounts got hacked.  I hadn’t really been interested in it but GameInformer listed it as one of the “must play” games of the generation so I figured that it was worth a look.  I played maybe an hour at most.  It wasn’t bad.  Very different from what I normally play but a change isn’t a bad thing.

Medifast Status: Day 207, Down ~70lbs

I do not have today off from work but I am working from home and am expecting it to be a very slow day.  I got up around nine and logged in from my office.  My morning, while slow, had just enough working coming in, spaced out just enough, to keep me busy until well into lunch time.  It was nearly one in the afternoon before I was even able to leave my desk for a while.

Bennie joined the party at the house today.  He had been staying with his family in the DFW area most of the week.

This afternoon Dominica and Francesca ran out to Kohl’s and Walmart to do some shopping.  They were only supposed to be making a quick run to Kohl’s because I was home watching the kids with Bennie but, as often happens, once they were out the door and tasted freedom they were off to do other shopping as well.  So instead of being gone for half and hour it was more like two hours.

For the first time in many, many years Dominica got to put up her Christmas tree today.  She was very excited.  We got this pre-lit Christmas tree back when we were first married and living at the house in Geneseo.  When we sold that house the tree went into storage in dad’s barn and it has been there ever since.  We didn’t have it in Newark and we didn’t have it in Peekskill and we didn’t manage to get it to this house until just several weeks ago.  Dominica has been pining for it (pun intended) all this time and every winter whines that she can’t have a Christmas tree.  It is possible that it has been five years or more.

Liesl has never had a Christmas tree at home.  This is Luciana’s first Christmas, of course.  Liesl’s first Christmas she was too young to appreciate the tree and it didn’t matter.  When she was one we had Christmas down in Houston (the Christmas when they got the big plastic ride on truck that went up and down the hills and she and Garrett liked so much) and again, she was too young to really care.  Then last year, when she was two, we were in New York at her grandparents’ house where there is always a huge tree and decorations and having the tree at home isn’t that big of a deal.  But this year it is Christmas in Houston again so having the tree at home is nice for her because she will remember this Christmas, most likely, even when she is old and remembering the house decorated and with a tree will be nice.

Liesl helped to decorate the tree too, as did Garrett and Clara.  Liesl loves to organize all of the ornaments into neat, orderly clumps of similar types.  She has not quite grasped the Christmas tree aesthetic yet but we will give her some slack as this is her first time decorating one.

This afternoon Francesca and I ran out to Kroger to grab a birthday cake for Liesl so that we would be ready in case we wanted to do cake for her tonight instead of tomorrow.

I had deployments today too, but not a whole lot of them.  It was not that bad.

Madeline started playing Epic Mickey today.  After being here all week and not trying any of the video games that we have, other than she and Emily playing Mario Kart which they have at home, she finally, at the last minute, gave something different a try and really liked it.  She made it several hours into the game today.

For dinner tonight we decided to return to Brookhaven.  It is just way too cost effective and close by not to do so.  Way better than using La Cima with all of the kids.  The Grille at Brookhaven was completely empty tonight as there was a magic chow and dinner going on in the main clubhouse that we did not feel that we were going to be able to make tonight so had not booked ahead for.  It worked out, though, because Madeline and Emily are too old for a magic show and Liesl and Garrett are too young.  I don’t think that anyone would have really enjoyed it and it would have cost more and with all of the kids it would have just been way too much of a hassle.

After dinner we all went to Chuck E. Cheese’s in Lewisville.  This is my first time going to Chuck E. Cheese’s since I was a very little kid and I convinced my parents to take me there.  We went once when I was little and it was not the best experience so we never returned.  Liesl had a great time riding on the little ride on cars and things and she rode the video ride where the seat shakes and you look at a video of people flying seven times.  She also really liked being able to climb through the big playground equipment but she was too short to be able to do it on her own so always needed either Madeline or Emily to help her climb into it.  She loves playground equipment and big slides.  She had a good time.

We got back to the house pretty late but Liesl had not fallen asleep quite when we got there so we decided that we would have the cake now rather than tomorrow.  Liesl was very excited.  She got three star candles on her pink and white cake.  She really liked her chocolate cake with the pink frosting.  She is like her daddy and really likes frosting.

After the kids went to bed everyone watched the first twenty minutes of the video that we have on northern Italy so that they Grices could see some of the areas where we are planning on visiting when we are over there in May.  Hard to believe that we are only six months away from heading over there at this point.  It is coming up quicker than we would have guessed.

We were all pretty tired when we turned in tonight.

Medifast Status: Day 206, Down ~70lbs

Dominica and I got home around five this morning before anyone was awake.  We didn’t want the kids waking up without us home.  We got in and Dominica got about one hour of sleep before Luciana got her up.  I managed to sleep for several hours, snuggling with Oreo, before needing to get up myself.

The Grice family left to go to Thanksgiving with Bennie’s family today so after about ten this morning we had the house to ourselves for the majority of the day.  We set about cleaning like crazy.  The house really needed it and this was our chance to really make a difference quickly.

We got hours of cleaning in and the house looked much, much better when we were all done.  We didn’t get nearly as much as we would have liked to have gotten done but it is much improved.

We tried to just grab Panda Express for lunch today.  I even went through the effort of driving out there to pick it up and discovered that nothing was open.  I had warned Dominica of this but she was confusing “Chinese food” from a national chain with food made by people who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving – back home we only have Chinese restaurants that are non-chains and they are almost always open on Thanksgiving and many other holidays making holidays at Chinese restaurants something of a natural tradition.  But with the big chains here in Texas that does not work in the same way.

So I ran back home and picked up Dominica and the girls and we went to IHOP which is always open.  Lunch was tasty.  Then back home.

We did some “real” work today too but not a ton.  It was great to be able to relax and do pretty much nothing.  My brain needed to just shut down for a bit.

This afternoon I managed, for the first time in eleven months, to fire up Oblivion again.  We finally got the speakers, the B&W 300 series, hooked up to the Onkyo in our bedroom and the television has been up on the wall and Oblivion has been located so finally, basically for the first time since we moved from the apartment, I am able to get back to this game and maybe, just maybe, complete it sometime soon.  I am 219 hours into the game and am just in the home stretch of wrapping up loose ends here and there.  But I really want to get it done.  I am ready to be done with this game and completely move on to something else.  It was a great game but it has lasted too long without a strong storyline for me.  The open world aspects have been great but I need more depth to keep me engaged for this long.

I am very much in the mood to wrap up the games that I have had in progress.  It is time to explore some new games.  I spend years playing just a few really large games and once in a while it is nice to complete one and move on to something else.  It is really amazing how few games I ever actually play.  I’ve completed only three games (Fable 1, Fable 2 and Fable 3) since Liesl was born!  That’s not very many.

I didn’t get much Oblivion time in.  Maybe an hour.  But at least I have it all set up and I am able to just pick it up and play whenever the opportunity allows now.  A few hours here and there and maybe I can work my way through it.

The Grices got back fairly late.  We hung out for a while and very late Dominica and Francesca sent me back to IHOP to pick up pancakes for the family.

After everyone went to bed Emily and I stayed up and watched our BluRay helicopter tour video of Austria.  Boy is there ever some beautiful places in Austria.  I can’t wait to get to go there.

Medifast Status: Day 205, Down ~70lbs

The last real day of work for the week.  I love holiday weeks.  Things were pretty slow all day today as everyone begins slowing down for the long, extended weekend.  There were some amount of deployments that needed to be done tonight just because a lot of people were treating this as a Friday even though it is Wednesday but not very many.  I was actually able to get all of the deployments done very quickly after four o’clock and by a quarter to five I was able to get out of the office and escape!

We have Francesca watching the girls tonight so Dominica and I are escaping to get some quiet alone time.  It is very, very rare for us to be able to get away from the kids, even just for a few hours.

From work I ran over to the Comfort Suites where we have a jacuzzi room for the evening.  I got us checked in and checked out the room.  Then from there I ran up to Addison to pick up dinner at Norma’s for the family.  They had called in the order before I went up there so I just needed to stop in and pick it up.  Very fast.  Although after getting dinner at the club last night it is really noticeable that it is cheaper for us to eat at Brookhaven than it is for us to eat at the diner by several dollars.  That is pretty crazy.

I got home and dropped off dinner.  Then we spent some time with the kids although Liesl and Luciana are perfectly happy hanging out with their cousins and Aunt Francesca.  They won’t care if we are home or not.

We left around a quarter to eight, once the evening with the kids was mostly over, to go get away for the evening.