Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday.  This is a super busy week, after having had the Newcombs visiting last week.  So I am pretty heads down trying to catch up.  And to prepare for Gene’s departure.  He just put in his notice at the end of last week, so I have tons and tons to do to prepare for that, including hiring a replacement person!

The girls were having fun stacking pillows on their bed and being goofy.  So we captured a picture.  Luciana happily posed, Liesl, of course, dove for cover (or for the covers, to be literal.)

The girls are back in their bedroom tonight.  We didn’t let them keep the air mattress blown up in the living room.  That is just asking for trouble.

Sunday.  Another day enjoying out mist-cooled atrium.  This is great.

The kids decided to play video games today.  We did a “brunch” at the house ourselves.

With the misting fan running, we are really just hiding outside and hanging out.  That consumed pretty much our entire weekend, starting on Friday afternoon.  This is our new favourite thing.

This evening I finally got to the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which people keep telling me will get better.  The first two seasons are not al that good.  Maybe better than I remember them, but not great.  At season three it is supposed to improve.  And, in theory, I am told that the later series are some of the best in the Star Trek sagas.

The weekend is here, and we have more free time that we had planned on.  But we also now have a misting fan and we are able to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air no matter how hot it is.  This is quite a novelty!

To celebrate having the new misting fan and being able to just hang out outside in the atrium, we have some staff coming over to spend the afternoon.  This is going to be the best place for meetings, ever.

Friday.  Originally the plan was that the Newcombs were going to be staying today and not heading back up to Missouri until tomorrow morning or maybe afternoon.  But they were feeling tired and decided that they wanted to get on the road and get their driving over and done with.  It is a good ten to twelve hours of driving and they were already several hours south down in Houston just yesterday and few people are the long haul driver that I have become over the years.

The Chris, Amanda, and the kids hung out all morning.  We had breakfast and chilled in the atrium. But by early afternoon they had decided to get back on the road and head north to avoid hitting Dallas afternoon traffic that would also be heading in that direction.

So the afternoon was spent with me working hard to catch up having not had much chance to work yesterday or this morning.  A lot to do before the weekend.

So our Friday that we thought was going to be very busy ended up being pretty relaxed.

Paul has been threatening for a while to get a misting fan and today he ran out and bought one.  It is a floor standing unit that oscillates and sprays a considerable amount of water while doing so.  We got it set up this afternoon and moved out into the atrium to enjoy it.

It is amazing how a misting fan changes everything.  It has been over a hundred degrees most days and being outside is just awful.  With the misting fan, even 105F doesn’t feel too bad, if you also have some shade.  It really moves the air and the cool water makes all of the difference.  This is going to be amazing.  Out atrium is going to get a lot of use now!

This morning was crazy house overhaul cleaning.  It’s been such a disaster for most of the year as it has been a combination of construction debris and Paul’s boxes since he moved in.  We’ve had no space for anything.

By noon the house was really looking good.  The living room, kitchen, bar… all clear for the first time in forever.  Some pictures have been hung that have been waiting for months on the bar.

The caulk has dried in the second bathroom, so while the room is not fully done, it is now fully operational for the first time in many months.  Both the toilet as well as the shower are now working!

It was a mad rush to get the house all ready because the Newcombs were coming to visit and are staying for a few days.  They have been down hear Houston and are stopping here for a bit on their way heading back up to Cuba, Missouri.

The house was looking pretty good by the time that they arrived early in the afternoon.  The air mattress is blown up in the living room and Liesl, Luciana, and Emily will be camping out there.  They will love that.

The big topic for the under ten crowd this week is slime.  Yup, slime.  Luciana and Emily especially are obsessed with it.  Liesl is interested, but not to the same level.  Luciana and I have already done several slime experiments at home (and Liesl did as well, months ago, but Luciana’s were just a few days ago) and Emily, it turns out, is a slime master and travels with tubs of the stuff, in all kinds of consistencies and colours, and knows how to mix for any occasion.  So she is teaching the girls how to do everything with slime at home.

We had to enforce a strict “slime only in the kitchen” policy to keep it from making its way onto rugs and things.

We hung out with the Newcombs all afternoon.  Both in the back yard and out in the atrium.

Since we have a babysitter for this evening, we all went out to a club to go dancing this evening.  It was nice to have an all adults’ night out for a change.  We don’t normally get so many people, especially without most of them being in their twenties.

We are adorable when we go out.

It was a late night, but not super ultra late like we had been expecting.  We were probably back home not long after one.  The kids were all fast asleep, and soon, so were we.