Sheep Guarding Llama

It was pretty crappy having to get up at six thirty in the morning after our long day yesterday.  We were really exhausted this morning but it had to be done.  We got up, packed up, loaded the car, got Liesl ready and were out the door amazingly fast.  Very impressive for us.  You would never know that we were the Millers.

The drive back to Peekskill went fine.  No issues at all.  We stopped in Apalachin, New York to hit the McDonald’s there so that we could eat some breakfast on the road while we drove.  We were in a bit of a hurry so that I could get back to Peekskill in time to work my “shift”.

All in all it was a pretty uneventful day.  Got home around nine thirty.  Drive went quickly.  I got straight to work and spent most of the day working from the basement.

Dominica has been doing a lot of work on clipping coupons and is now getting the Sunday newspaper (which we picked up on the way home) and doing something called “The Coupon Game” using a website that helps her to maximize her coupon value.  So Dominica and Liesl went to the grocery store to do some shopping today.

While the girls were out I did some cleaning around the house.  There was a bit to do.

This evening we broke out the DVDs of The Big Bang Theory which came highly recommended by Andy.  We didn’t really like the first episode but ended up getting into the show after that.  It is pretty good.  They start off trying way too hard to be technical and fail first thing when the supposedly geeky guys go out looking for a fractional T1 line to make their Internet access faster.  A fractional T1 normally caps around 768Kb/s or 1Mb/s at most and is often quite a bit slower than that.  A typical home DSL and Cable line is many times that speed – many times at a fraction of the cost.  So these “smart” kids were going out to spend thousands of dollars a month on a line that most of us get many times over for $40!  Just bad writers using some term they heard ten years before and didn’t understand and thought that they could sound educated by using now.  Ugh.  Sloppy writing for the very first “we’re smart writers” attempt.  But the physics stuff and math stuff isn’t so bad and it improves and the season goes on.

It was a short night for us although the Miller family got more of a chance to sleep in than did most anyone else this morning.  We are the only family without children old enough to get up on their own and start their days without us.  So we got a little more sleep than most everyone else.

We got started decently early and headed on out to the family farm in Waverly by the river and got started on the party!  As expected, it was a big turnout for the fourth.  So many kids!

We had a really good time.  It is so nice to have a big family with so many people who are roughly the same age and have kids around the same age.  It’s something that I never had with my family.  With no siblings and no cousins close to my age and only one even relatively near my age and no second cousins that close to my age family functions to me are really about hanging out with people from other generations and much less about hanging out with friends that you grew up with.  So it is very cool when we get to do this stuff with Dominica’s family.

Liesl had a really good time getting to visit with everyone and especially loved getting to “play” with the older kids.  Her cousins and second cousins would routinely take her out to play and she just loved it.

All in all it was a really good time. It’s crappy that everyone lives so far apart so that we only get together like this once a year if we are lucky.

We partied till about ten or so.  Then it was back to James and Nikki’s house to get to bed which we didn’t really do until like one in the morning.  We have to be up early tomorrow because we need to get back to Peekskill so that I can work tomorrow.

I slept in this morning.  Slept in a lot.  I really needed a chance to just relax and do some catch up on my rest.

After sleeping in I came down and did some quick email checking and then it was time to go out and run some errands.

We had lunch at the diner then did some quick shopping.  We went to Walmart to get some necessary supplies.

Once we returned home I  started playing Oblivion a little.  I was really looking forward to just getting to do nothing for the first time in as long as I can remember – probably since the middle of last year – and zone out.

By three, our plans had changed and instead of going to Waverly tomorrow we are heading out tonight.  Dominica needed to cook for Oreo which takes many hours.  Liesl was not going to be left without her daddy and wanted to hang out with me all afternoon.  So Dominica set about cooking and packing as quickly as she could while Liesl hung out with me while I tried to play Oblivion.  I spent a few hours trying to entertain Liesl and play Oblivion on the PS3 but I really didn’t not manage to get much of any gameplay in.

It took Dominica until around six or seven before she was ready to go.  Then she was able to watch Liesl while I got ready to go.  We were out the door somewhere around eight thirty or so.  The relaxing day ended up being a panic to get out the door day.

The drive itself went pretty smoothly.  We grabbed McDonald’s on the road and ate in the car.  We entertained ourselves by listening to classic tunes on my iPod rather than listening to a book.

We arrived at James and Nikki’s house in Waverly, New York at just after eleven.  We hung out there till a little after one when Dominica’s cousin Diane had been missing for quite some time so Nikki and I went driving to find her and bring her back.  So we ended up all staying up until quite late.  Two or three in the morning.  Not really sure when.

It was quite a busy morning this morning.  I got up kinda early and worked very hard right through lunch.  No breaks at all.  At a quarter till one we had to run to get out the door with Liesl to take her to the doctor’s office for her seven month checkup.  We were right on time and did not have to weait more than a minute before we were in the appointment.

Liesl’s appointment went really well.  She continues to be way ahead of their expectations and has no signs about which they are worried.  She is really close to crawling now and we have been working with her almost every day to try to get her to crawl.  She is really good at “scootching” across the floor which is, apparently, a bit further along that she would be expected to be at just seven months so they are, again, very impressed with her progress.  The doctor was amazed by how strong, bright and interactive she was.  She is so totally engaged in the people around her.

Liesl’s stats are not eighteen pounds and twenty-two inches tall.  She is getting so big so fast! And she can almost stand on her own already too.  Her balance is really improving quickly.

So the whole doctor’s visit went really well.  They are completely thrilled with her development and that, obviously, makes us feel a lot better too.

After the appointment we went to Pastel’s for lunch since we were already out and about.  There hadn’t been time to get any food earlier in the day so this was pretty easy.

After lunch it was back to work.  Today was a pretty busy day because it is the last work day of the week.  So I was busy in the basement working until relatively late this evening.  Then it was time for a little Gilmore Girls and then off to bed.  Had some Lakeshore Semi-Dry Riesling this evening too.

Tomorrow I am off from work.  What an amazing concept!  I am very excited to have some real time to relax.  Planning on getting up late and playing Oblivion tomorrow!  We leave for Waverly first thing on Saturday morning for the fourth of July celebration out there and return home to Peekskill on Saturday night.