Sheep Guarding Llama

We all slept in this morning a bit, last night being the time change so Brian and I had stayed up rather late watching Netflix sci-fi shows, and the weather was absolutely amazing so Dominica suggested that we take Liesl to the Fort Worth Zoo today.  I have never had a chance to take Liesl to the zoo.  We tried to take her with the Grices’ to the Houston Zoo many months ago but that didn’t work out and Dominica and my father took her to the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York back in July but I’ve never made it to the zoo with her so this was a real treat for me.  Plus I just like going to the zoo anyway.  We’ve heard that the Fort Worth Zoo is far superior to the Dallas Zoo so we had decided to go there even though it is a little farther away.

It took us a little while to get all ready but we finally made it out and it was probably eleven in the morning when we finally got to the zoo.  They only open at ten so that wasn’t too late.  The weather is just perfect for being at the zoo today.  It is just a little autumn brisk in the air with a light breeze and bright sunshine.  Cool enough to make walking around the zoo and getting some exercise very pleasant.

We decided that it would behoove us to simply join the zoo as members as today’s visit cost is applied towards the membership cost.  With membership we can come to the zoo as often as we want for the year, our parking is free and we get ten percent off of our food purchases which adds up quickly.  If we come back two more times this year, which seems pretty likely with a two year old who loves animals, we will have saved money.  Any more than that and we are making out like bandits raccoons.

We brought Liesl’s stroller although that turned out to be possibly more of a burden than it was worth as she was determined to walk everywhere all day.  We started by heading into the primate area.  Liesl loves monkeys and apes, which of course she calls monkeys.  That was a great start to the day.  She really liked the waterfalls and things that the animals had too.  She loves fountains and running water, just like her daddy, so that was some of her favourite stuff.

I was starving having not had breakfast and it being lunch time, so we stopped at the first cafe in the zoo and got Burger King for lunch.  We get ten percent off of the normal prices so it is actually cheaper, as far as I can tell, for us to eat inside the zoo than to eat outside of it.  The cafe area was neat because it was below the level of some of the fish tanks at MOLA (the Museum of Living Art) so Liesl had a grand time watching the fish, turtles and gharial.

From the cafe we headed out and say the zebra.  I actually had not seen them myself but was carrying Liesl and she pointed up the hill and said “zebra!”  It took me a while to find them.  I couldn’t believe that she had seen them on her own.  She must have some amazing eyesight.

She really enjoyed MOLA.  They had a ton of aquariums in there and she wanted to spend a lot of time at each and every one.  Her favourite one might have been the one outside, right at the MOLA entrance (most of MOLA is inside a building.)  She stood at that one for more than half an hour and just had the grandest time watching the fish and turtles.  Anyone else who came up to look at the fish would get a long, disconnected explanation from Liesl as to the fish and what they were doing.  Then Liesl would attempt to count the fish – a daunting task for a little girl who just learned to count to eight.

After MOLA we decided to travel to the far top end of the park to see the Texas exhibit up there thinking that Liesl would really enjoy that part.  It was a long  jouney to get up there, this is no small zoo.  We really wanted to take the Yellow Rose Express, the railroad that runs through the zoo, but it is closed today and not running.  We got a bit of exercise today.

The Texas exhibit was very nicely done.  We spent some time at the petting zoo where Liesl got to pet a chicken and a goat.  She was very gentle and was plenty gentle, even for the little chicken.  She thought that petting and brushing the goat was great fun.

We got some ice cream and hung out in the main Texas town exhibit for a little bit figuring out what our strategy was going to be for the day as we had already burned through most of the zoo hours for the day.  We decided that Liesl would most appreciate the aquatic and big cat exhibits so we headed that way.

Liesl got some more aquarium time and got to see several big cats like a mountain lion, ocelot, jaguar and bobcat.  We hit the aviary but it was tiny.  Then we went to the bat cave.  We never really managed to go into the bat cave, though, because right at the entrance is a little “cave” for kids to go into that is too small for adults.  At first, Liesl was too afraid to go in but after some bigger kids went in there she decided that it would be fun so she went it without her parents and then decided that this was the best thing ever.  We probably spent more than half an hour with Liesl hiding in that cave playing with whatever kids ventured along to check out the cave themselves.

Liesl played in her kid cave until the zoo closed.  She was not happy when we had to take her out of the cave and leave the zoo.  She was really exhausted and needed to get home and take a nap after that.  She had a great day and we are already glad that we paid for annual memberships – we are going to be using those a lot.

We got home and put Liesl down for her nap.  It was probably five thirty by the time that we got home.

I played a little Oblivion this afternoon while Liesl was sleeping.  Not too much, maybe an hour at most.

For dinner, Brian and I went out to Blu Ginger and got take-out for Dominica.  Then he and I hit La Madeleine for dinner and sat outside and enjoyed the awesome weather.  It is cold enough that fleeces are required but still very nice.

After dinner, at nine Dominica put Liesl to bed and Brian and I drove over to Watson’s house where we worked for three hours on some projects.  This was my first time ever seeing Watson’s apartment!  It is very nice.  A Texan version of our old apartment in Newark.

Ah, the weekend is here.  I got to sleep in some this morning.  Eventually Brian and I got our butts into gear and we went out to Panera to pick up breakfast.  We ended up eating there ourselves and bringing food back for Dominica and Liesl.  Of course, being the weekend, it was around noon by the time that we actually got back from Panera as we were very slow in getting moving this morning.

I got to play a little Oblivion today.  Not very much but a little.  Maybe an hour.  I suppose maybe two, it is hard to gauge time while you are playing.  I am in the Shivering Isles now and attempting to explore this massive expansion.

Today was mostly a relaxing, stay at home day.  Got a lot of Liesl time in today.  She is getting so good with the Apple iPad, it is amazing.  Now she is able to power on the system herself, unlock it, scroll through the menus, find the Monkey Lunchbox game that she loves, select it, choose “Play” and start her game all by herself!  She also knows how to get out of the game when she is done.  Unbelievable how quickly she figured all of that out.  The iPad is absolutely the best toddler learning tool every because it is so interactive and the direct, tactile interface is something that she can do with basically no training.  It is so much less abstract than a mouse or keyboard.

In her Monkey Lunchbox game, Liesl has learned to count up to eight very well, play the matching game “concentration” with amazing accuracy (it is randomized, she doesn’t not memorize it as people have been guessing), she can pick out the “largest” and “smallest” fruits and she can drag puzzle pieces onto an outline and reassemble a puzzle.  We cannot believe how rapidly she has learned all of the skills used in this game and can now zip through it like a pro.  If you have a toddler, the iPad is one of the best investments ever.

I did have to work today.  Nothing too crazy, just some minor stuff.  I knocked that out this afternoon.

This evening, I got Brian to watch the first few episodes of the new Doctor Who which he ended up liking, even though they are the weak “setup” episodes and the real storyline hasn’t kicked in yet.  After that we watched the first episode of Stargate SG-1 which I have surprisingly never seen.  I’ve seen the original movie, of course, and that was classic with Kurt Russell and James Spader but I’ve never seen the series or any of the spinoffs – not a single episode.  Lots of people rave about what a good series is so I was willing to check it out.  The first episode was really weak.  We will see if it manages to get better.

I ended up working from home this morning.  Just one of those mornings where you get caught going from one call to a project to an emergency and after a few hours realize that you have just worked most of the morning from your bedroom and never managed to get out the door to the office and now it is so late that you might as well just get lunch half an hour early and get on with the day.  But I did manage to get to see Liesl all morning so that was awesome.  We are getting more than normal time together this week.

Brian and I grabbed lunch and then I got into the office for the afternoon a little on the early side.  The afternoon at work was quite busy and I did not manage to get home until quite late.  More like the old days in New Jersey when Friday nights were always very, very late.  It was around eight when I finally walked back home in the dark.  Several people on my team have to be working again at two in the morning.  I’m glad that I just had to work late tonight and do not have to start again in the middle of the night.

Brian was out at the Ranch this evening so Dominica, Liesl and I had the apartment to ourselves for the evening.

Six days until dad comes to visit us in Texas.

This week is flying by.  Getting Tuesday “off” breaks up the week nicely, if I do say so myself.

This morning was spent dealing with financial issues, primarily our health insurance which we have been paying an arm and a leg to get but have not had actually turned on yet.  So, since August 1st, we have paid thousands of dollars of insurance while also paying thousands of dollars of medical bills out of pocket.  Not a good combination.  We have gotten a little desperate to get this all fixed.

After over an hour, maybe even two, being bounced from one call queue to another, I finally managed to track down our insurance folks, figure out who to call in the future and got everything straightened out.  So now, we actually have insurance that we can use.  Good thing because we absolutely needed to have it turned on today.

I came home from work at lunch to watch Liesl while Dominica went into the doctor to get a regular checkup on the baby.  She ended up having to wait like ninety minutes for her appointment which ended up only taking five minutes.  Argh.

The good news is that everything is good with the baby.  The heartbeat looks good and all the measurements are fine.  Not a lot of details today but as we had announced our pregnancy a little on the early side there is always that extra concern that the regular checkup will reveal something unexpected so we all feel much better after today.

Liesl and I had a grand time hanging out while mommy was away.  We played together the entire time.  We don’t get a lot of time just the two of us so that was a lot of fun and a nice excuse to be away from work extra long.

Dominica got home and I ran back to the office.  Mostly a nondescript day other than that.  Brian is all set to drive to Houston on Wednesday and fly back to Philadelphia on Thursday morning – a week from today.  Dad comes down to Texas to visit us for the first time a week from today as well!  Hard to believe that we are finally going to see him down here.

I’m feeling quite a bit better today.  I went to bed early last night and slept in pretty late this morning and with all of that extra sleep I was able to mostly recover.

Busy day at work today but that is to be expected when I am loaded up with anything that I could push off from yesterday left for me today.  Filtering through my email alone was a daunting task.  Most of it, though, I just delete in bulk.  No choice there.  I average ten thousand email messages per day.  Average.  Ten thousand.  It is ridiculous.  And it isn’t like we get spam.  These are internal email systems.  This is just useless crap that the company can’t figure out to stop sending in a neverending internal storm of useless email.  The amount of money that this poor planning must cost amazes me.  You could run successful companies on the money lost from bad email management and culture in this place.

After work I went home around five thirty and had a short call with Dell and then Souder, Maggie and I went over to La Cima to meet up with Watson and have dinner.  It was a long night at La Cima!  We didn’t get home until just before one in the morning!

Fell into bed.  Catch you tomorrow, world.