Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 58, Down ~38.5lbs

If you are following my Medifast status you will notice that, for the first time since leaving Texas, I was able to weigh in today.  For our final week in Texas I had barely been losing any weight at all which was causing some minor concern.  Then, while in Ohio, I was stuck eating less than ideal meals and had a lot of snack “breaches” mostly involving almonds and other nuts.  I was finally able to weigh myself at dad’s house this morning and much to my surprise I have dropped nine pounds since Friday!  I am now doing very, very well on my diet.

I am working every day so I had to set up at dad’s computer in the office and was glued there all day.  I was busy enough and needed at the office that I did not manage to even go out for lunch with the family.  They all went out to the Omega Grill in Geneseo without me.  Turns out, I didn’t want to be there today.  Dominica’s food got messed up and then Luciana had a major diaper operational failure that resulted in a truly unbelievable mess.  Dominica did not at all have a good time at lunch.

When they returned from Geneseo they brought me food to eat so at least I got an Omega meal while being home.

Danielle stopped by this afternoon to do some training with dad and to pick up the three workstations that Dominica and I had driven up from Texas.  We were glad to have those out of the car.  We didn’t need anything else taking up space and weighing us down.  I also unloaded the servers that we were transporting so that we can just deal with them in a week when we return.

We stayed at dad’s until seven thirty and then it was time to get on the road out to Frankfort.  We are just running from one place to another this week.

We stopped in Geneseo to grab coffee at Tim Horton’s before leaving the area.

It’s only three hours or less from dad’s house to Dominica’s parents’ house.  So we got in just after ten.

It was a nice night and I had been in the car a lot the last few days so Madeline, Emily and I went out for a short walk around town.  We went down Main Street and up Adams and back down Cemetery Hill.  I checked it on Google Maps and it was 1.8 miles.  Not a long walk but a nice evening stroll.

While we were out walking it started to rain lightly.  We didn’t get too wet but we did hurry along home just in case more rain came.

Neither Madeline or Emily had ever been in a cemetery before, not even this one where their great grandmother is buried.  So this was a first for both of them since we stopped in briefly just so that they could see it.

Medifast Status: Day 57, Down ~29.5lbs

Today is our day to just visit with the family in Ohio.  I was hoping to stay until Thursday but Dominica felt that we needed to get out to New York tonight so we are spending the day here and leaving late to head up north.  So that meant checking out of the hotel this morning and loading up the Acadia again.  At least we will save money not paying for extra hotel nights.  That adds up quickly.

We got out to East Canton and pretty much just spent the day hanging out with everyone.  Most everyone had the day off so we saw a good amount of my family even though it is a Tuesday.  I had to work all day and there is no Internet access at grandma’s house so we set up my iPhone as a hotspot, which is not at all cheap, and I worked tethered to that via WiFi all day.  That actually worked pretty well.

For dinner the family, including Monica’s boyfriend Ryan that we just met today, all went to Grinder’s in Louisvilla, obviously at our request.  They ran out of the veggie burger patties today – I’m sure that they were not used to the sudden quantity of them needed with two vegetarians eating there every day – and so we had fish instead.

Liesl had a great time playing at grandma’s house.  She loves going for walks in the garden and having so much open space outside in which to play.  She likes all of the flowers and places to explore.  My aunt Cheryl got Liesl some bubbles with which to play and she made everyone go out and play in the back yard until absolutely all of the bubbles were completely gone.

It was around seven thirty when we got Liesl and Luciana loaded up and we were on the road up to New York.  We kept Liesl from napping today so she was asleep in no time having worn herself out playing outside.

Dominica and I continued “reading” Bill Bryson’s “At Home” on the drive to New York.  That is a really interesting book.  It is amazing how much awesome history can come from such a seemingly boring topic.  My favourite part of long distance drives is that it gives me a chance to catch up on my reading.  Now that I have no air conditioning on my daily commute and have to keep my windows open to keep from cooking inside of the Mazda I am unable to listen to my Audible books on a daily basis like I was in the winter.

The drive itself went fine.  We had held out getting fueled up until we left as gas has just been dropping and dropping the last few days.  But, of course, because we waited gas jumped up by twenty four cents between leaving the hotel this morning and leaving grandma’s this afternoon.  Oops.  Well that didn’t work out very well.

It was around one in the morning when we pulled into dad’s house.  Liesl was excited to see papa again even though she had seen him the day before.  This morning when going to grandma’s house Liesl was asking if she would get to see papa and we had promised her that she would see him tonight so we had to make sure that she got some time with him before going to bed.

Dominica and Luciana have the guest bedroom.  Liesl, Oreo and I took the den.  I doubt that we will be up early tomorrow.

Medifast Status: Day 56, Down ~29.5lbs

It was a mad rush for us this morning to attempt to get up and get the girls packed and out to the funeral home by ten in the morning.  Even without needing to pack up the car just getting the girls ready is hard.  It takes twenty minutes or more to get there from Alliance so even though we left before ten we were rushing and a bit late.  We had to be there an hour before the funeral service so that we could get the car into the procession lineup.

The girls did quite well at the funeral.  Keeping two young girls quiet, even for a short funeral, so no small feat.  But both did really well.  The service was very nice.  There isn’t much to say about a funeral service.  It is quiet and sad.  My only grandfather that I ever knew is now gone.  My paternal grandfather died five years before I was born so Grandpa Myers was the only grandfather that I ever knew.  I only have one remaining grandparent now and I am not the eldest male in the Myers’ line.

After the service everyone went down to the Indian Run Church not very far away from East Canton and had a lunch there provided by the church.  This wasn’t even the church that my grandparents attended but apparently a lot of friends and family do currently or have attended there.  We didn’t expect there to be very much for us to eat there, midwest church food is pretty far from what works for vegetarians on Medifast, so we were already planning on just visiting and then going back up to Louisville to go to Grinder’s afterward.

On the drive back from Indian Run we got stuck at a broken train crossing and had to drive all around to find an alternative way back north.  Then it was up to Grinder’s.  This is our new place to eat when in Ohio.

After lunch we returned to grandma’s house and spent the afternoon with the family.  Dad left to drive back to New York this afternoon.  We are pretty sure that we are going to drive up there tomorrow evening.  We wanted to spend more time in Ohio but there is a ton of work to do for the wedding that is coming up in less than two weeks and Dominica really wants to get out to Frankfort so that she can help out with that.

Medifast Status: Day 55, Down ~29.5lbs

We were exhausted this morning and slept in rather late.  Even so it was not that much sleep and we are changing hotels today from Canton to Alliance so we need to pack up the car and move everything again which takes a very long time, but the hotel is Alliance is about twenty dollars cheaper per night so it makes up for the move.

We were late enough that we needed to go straight to the funeral home rather than meeting the family at grandma’s house.  We were the first to arrive but were less than ten minutes ahead of everyone else.

We got to see the family for the first time at the calling hours for grandpa.  This was the first time that nearly everyone got to meet Luciana and the first time seeing Liesl in quite a long time.  This was Liesl’s second trip to Ohio.  There was a lot of family there.  We were at the calling hours for about two hours.

Grandpa’s obituary was posted online at Tributes.com:

“Ralph D. Myers Age 85, of East Canton, passed away Wednesday June 22, 2011 in Aultman Hospital. He was born October 1, 1925 in Mogadore, OH to the late Roy E. and Alverna (Goodenberger) Myers. Ralph was a 1943 graduate of Hartville High School and was a WWII Army veteran. He was an East Canton area resident for 63 years. Ralph was a member of First Christian Church where he was active with the Berean Sunday School class and was a member of the DAV. He retired from the Hoover Company in 1987 after 41 years of service and retired from Osnaburg Local Schools in 1993 after 16 years of service. In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by one daughter, Karen Miller. He is survived by his wife, Doris Arlene (VanVoorhis) to whom he was married 63 years; three daughters and sons-in-law, Marlene and Don Ryan of Louisville, Cheryl and Dennis Lillie of Louisville, Gayle M. Myers of N. Canton; son-in-law, Tom Miller of New York; four grandchildren, Scott (Dominica) Miller, Gwendolyn (Michael) Grossi, Brett and Monica Lillie; two great-grandchildren, Liesl and Luciana Miller; two sisters, Ila Ruthrauff of Texas and Beulah Pool of N. Canton.”

After the calling hours Dominica, Liesl, Luciana and I drove up to Louisville to look for food.  Between our vegetarian needs and now my Medifast needs it is really hard to get food that we can eat.  We tried going to Mike’s Milann’s but they are not open on Sundays.  That was the only restaurant that everyone thought would work for us.  We thought that we were probably going to have to drive some distance when someone recommended that we try out Grinder’s, also in Louisville.

Grinder’s turned out to be an amazing find.  We had no idea that there was something like this in Stark County, Ohio.  Grinder’s is like a local version of TGI Friday’s or Appleby’s but far better.  The menu is extensive, the food is really good and unlike the national chains that have all made a deliberate point of snubbing vegetarians, Grinder’s goes out of their way to have awesome vegetarian and pescatarian options including a dedicated vegetarian menu and an in-house made veggie burger made primarily from quinoa that is one of, if not the, best we have ever had. We are definitely coming back to Grinder’s and telling everyone about it.  What a great find.

After finding a late lunch we returned to my grandparents’ house in East Canton and spent the evening with the family.  Everyone was very excited to get to spend time with Luciana.  She was very popular.

We turned in early this evening.  By nine thirty we were on our way out to Alliance so that we could check in to our hotel there.  We are staying here for a few days so, for the first time since leaving Texas, we will get to get up tomorrow morning without having to reload the Acadia before heading out for the day.

Even getting to the hotel before ten we were still unable to actually get to bed before midnight.

Medifast Status: Day 54, Down ~29.5lbs

We woke up this morning and it was a mad rush to be able to get out of the hotel.  When you have to pack and unpack the car and two kids and Oreo it is quite the massive ordeal.  It takes hours to get back on to the road.

It was nearly noon when we finally got moving again.  Later than we wanted but we needed the time.

Having finished the epic yesterday, today we finished reading “The Disappearing Spoon” which Dominica and I had started listening to months ago.  It is an awesome book.

After we finished our in process book we started reading Bill Bryson’s latest book “At Home” which turned out to be really good.  We really enjoyed listening to it and it worked well for keeping us awake for most of the drive.

The girls did well today on the drive.  Not as well as last night but it was a much, much longer drive.

I drove all the way from Springfield, Missouri to Massilon, Ohio.  At that point I was so tired that Dominica had to take over for the last twenty minutes into Canton.

It was around three in the morning when we finally got in.  Late but we made it.  We will be in Ohio for several days now.