Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is our one full day in Wisconsin. Tomorrow we have to head out to New York, and that is a very long drive.

For a late breakfast, or an early lunch, we went to Norske Nook, which is kind of a big thing locally. All authentic Norwegian food. It was a little expensive but the food was really good, I tried some traditional Norwegian that I really enjoyed.

While at “the Nook”, we had some amazing desserts and decided that dad needed one, too. So we picked up an entire pie for him to take back to New York with us tomorrow.

We ran some errands this evening to get some Christmas stuff. Then it was back to Paul’s dad’s house.

Dominica started packing up the car at six. Quiet night at the house tonight.

Friday. Today we started in Iowa and continued our drive north to Wisconsin.

We were into Minnesota quite quickly. This is my second new state of the trip and my first of the day.

We drove through Minneapolis. We stopped in the area and had lunch at a Yucatan place with Paul’s brother. Lunch was good and Valentina thought that it was really funny that we were eating at a Cancun restaurant in the snow. Liesl and I experimented with several hot sauces and she could handle some really hot ones, but she ended up with one that was too hot and she was nearly in tears from it.

We continued on to Wisconsin and got to Cumberland in the early evening, to Paul’s dad’s house. He had a lot of room for us and we spent the evening there hanging out with his dad. After his dad went to bed, the girls and I hung out at the house while Paul and Dominica did some errands around Cumberland.

Thursday. This morning we are leaving Texas to drive to Wisconsin. I am excited as I am going to get to see several states and regions that I have never seen before. A number of states to cross off of my “never been to list.” After this trip, I will be down to only four states that I have never been to: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, and Utah!

We drove from Texas to Iowa today.  My first new state since I went to Oregon in the autumn.  Not the most exciting of new states as I have been near the border on three sides previously, so nothing in Iowa is really “new”.  But it is an entirely new state and I get to check it off of my list.  And that makes me happy.

It was a pretty easy drive.  Paul does all of the driving and I ride in the back with the girls because Dominica cannot handle being out of the front seat.  So I was doing DuoLingo much of the day and made some incredible progress.

Got a hotel in Iowa and are crashing for the night so that tomorrow we just have an easy drive to Minnesota and then on to Wisconsin.

Three below freezing this morning. So cold!

Wednesday, our last day in Texas for a while.  This morning was an all hands house cleaning day as Isabella and Juan are coming over later to play with the girls.  In reality, this is the very first time every “having friends over” to the house in Texas, or anywhere in America.  They used to do this a lot when we lived in Romania, but it is something that just never happens here.  So this is a really big deal.  They’ve had friends here, but it has always been associated with their parents coming to visit or whatever, or their cousins.  And even both of those things are really rare.

So until about one, we just cleaned and cleaned.  The house is looking pretty decent, though.  Liesl did a great job of cleaning all morning.  Luciana found it a lot more stressful and wasn’t exactly helpful all day, but she did have her moments.

The girls’ room is the big winner of the day’s cleaning.  I can’t remember so much of the floor being visible.  I’m not sure we had it this clean even when we were painting it!  They have room to play and everything.

Isabella, Juancho, and their mother Stephanie came over from four until six this afternoon.  So the girls had a fun afternoon playing with their friends.  Last chance to really see them for quite a while.

Ken after we hunted him down till after 2am.  The siding is “good enough” to get us through for a while now.

Rachel was supposed to come by this evening but was unable to make it.

The girls and I watched Fuller House this evening.  And we played chess together for a while.

The girls and I went on an ice cream run to Sonic tonight.  Yummy.

Tuesday.  We got a light freeze last night, just dipped during the night.

Today I had a fun day working with AT&T because they sent a tech on site without checking with anyone first.  And they didn’t check to see if they had shipped a router to us first.  So the tech was on site all day looking for a router that it turns out that they shipped to the wrong address and totally lost!  So now our deployment has been pushed way out now.

It is a busy week as we prepare to head up to Wisconsin and New York shortly.  There is a lot to do in the office and we are going to be doing so much traveling!