Sheep Guarding Llama

We are down in Houston today, at the Grices’.  The kids are going to be staying here this week, Dominica and I will head back to Dallas tonight.  Today is Sunday.

Everyone was a bit tired today after the party yesterday, so it was sleeping in late.  Then the kids all asked me to play Dungeons & Dragons with them again.  Garrett had stayed up reading a lot of rules last night, in fact, he is so excited to be playing.

But before we could really play, they decided to all get in the pool and swim for the afternoon.  Luciana really wanted me to swim again, so I did, along with her grandfather and Emily.  We played more of the “Oh No” game that I taught them yesterday.  We swam for quite a while.

Dominica and I left mid-afternoon to do the drive back up to Dallas.  We made really good time, almost no traffic at all.

We are down in Houston today for Colton’s birthday party and to meet baby Reagan for the first time! They swam first at the Grices in the morning, before going to the party.

It was a pool party day over at the Toccos’.  I had promised the girls that I would swim with them today.  I let them swim for the first while on their own, but then went in later in the day and swam for several hours.

At some point this evening, all of the kids decided that they wanted to learn how to play Dungeons & Dragons.  Pretty exciting that they all want to play.  But tough that they sprung it on me without any warning.

So we spent a few hours tonight trying to explain the game and come up with some kind of way for the to get to play at least a little.  I set Garrett and Liesl up with the Pathfinder rule books online before going to bed so that they could at least read some about it.

Friday.  Normal work this morning.  Up early, as I am basically every day.  This afternoon I did some planning for my much needed trip down to the new office in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.  I had been hoping that I would have been able to have figured out how to go down in November or December, because the sooner that I go, the more the training will benefit the office down there.  But looking at my windows of opportunity, and when flights are affordable, there really is no time before the new year when I can make it happen.  My schedule is just too tight for it.

So it is currently looking like I will be heading down in January and hopefully spending a bit of the month there.  We will see just how much as we get closer to the date.  I am super hopeful that I will get a little free time and be able to spend some time in the region.  I would love to do a road trip through Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador while I am so close and do not have the kids with me.

This evening, after work, we drove down to Houston so that we can there tomorrow to meet baby Reagan, and to celebrate Colton’s birthday.  And, to drop off Liesl and Luciana who are going to be spending the entire week down there with their cousins and grandparents.  We will be getting them back next Sunday or Monday.  We will be just down for the weekend, returning on Sunday afternoon back up to Dallas.

Thursday.  Today was a very busy one. Got up and worked like bad all day.  Was very tired, but there was only time to work.  I was at it hard until four in the afternoon.

Then I got a little break and went out to hang out in the atrium for a little while before working with Rodrigo to do a firewall swap out for a customer out in Denver.  Firewall swaps are always a lot of stress because the network is offline, there is no way to look anything up from the old system, and everything has to be done over the phone with remote hands as there is no way to see the new firewall until it is in place.

I basically did not get to eat all day.  Just yoghurt and pickles.  Karla was teasing me with pictures of her amazing looking Nicaragua fish fry that looked so good that I have to include the picture here.

That is fried curvina, which is caught in the lake near Jinotega up in teh mountains.  It looks so good.

I’m pretty sure that Kat came over to hang out this evening, but for some reason, probably because I was so ridiculously busy all day and well into the evening, I failed to make any specific note that she was here.  But it is Thursday night and the gap in my notes suggests that she was here and that that was why I was busy and not making notes because once I was done with work we were all sitting out in the atrium hanging out.

Wednesday.  I worked late last night and was up early today. So was a bit tired starting off the day.  My early morning was lots of NextCloud and FreePBX work.

My day was pretty busy.   Did manage to get dinner, though.  And sat outside in the atrium for a little bit, but Maggie needed me to help with some work so around ten this evening I had to go back into the office.

I did manage to get a picture of Paul playing guitar out in the atrium before I had to get working again, though.

I ended up working until three in the morning!  I only stopped when I did because our Internet went out here in Dallas and I figured that I should not wait for it in the wee hours of the morning.  So off to bed I went.