In other yard news, did you know you could pour boiling water on grass to kill it?  Our walkway has been a bit overrun, and Karen told me that yesterday so I boiled a large pot and a teapot to see what would happen, and later this afternoon when I checked we had a lot of dead or dying grass up and down the walkway.  That’s looking much better now too.

After I finished all that and cleared the patio of pine straw sand I sat out on the porch swing with a slice of pizza enjoying a nice breeze when a guy walked up trying to get me to change my alarm system.  I’d have gone with it, but we’re locked in with our current alarm company and it’s too far in for them to buy it out.  It would have saved us a few bucks every month and we’d apparently have gotten some better equipment.  Ah well.

After Milly got up, we all met up with my brother Adam at the Wrightsville Beach park then headed on over to Anna and Barry’s.  We talked to them for a bit then all went out on the beach.  Adam got to play with Milly in the shallow water until one wave hit her in the face and she decided she didn’t want to be there anymore.  She went with Amanda to sit on the towel while Adam and I went out to jump waves and such.

The waves picked up after a little while and more surfers came out, so I suggested we go grab some boards.  Amanda said Milly seemed to be getting tired of being out there, so we all went in.  Barry was going to come back out with me and Adam, but after waiting a little bit Adam decided he didn’t really feel like going back out, so I took him back to his car and Barry and I went out to surf.

We caught some pretty decent waves.  Of note to me was that I took two nose dives and decided that I needed to take off at more of an angle.  There was another time I saw my nose getting ready to dip into the water, so I shifted my weight back and kicked the board to my left.  No spill and I was able to ride it in a good bit.

The wind picked up and started chopping up the waves.  Barry said he was about to go in, but as soon as he considered that it picked back up a little and we caught some more before going on in.

As usual, Milly ate pretty much the whole time she was at Anna and Barry’s.  She didn’t fuss but once, I think Amanda said, which is good because she didn’t take her afternoon nap.

Scout, Anna and Barry’s King Charles spaniel, isn’t feeling well, as evidenced by the fact that he didn’t get up to bother Milly while she was eating or when she left some food on the floor.

At home we had dinner, which consisted of some organic ravioli Amanda had picked up.  It was okay, but a little bland.  When Milly woke up and we gave her some for dinner, even she wasn’t interested in it.  The garlic bread with actual slices of garlic was very good though.

Zach Dotsey

When we got home from church my cousins Jeff Cherryholmes and Eleanor Horner were waiting for us.  Jeff’s been staying out at my parents’ house and Eleanor came to visit her dad, Uncle Roy, who has also been staying with my parents.  Amanda told her on Facebook the other day that she should bat her eyes at Jeff to get him to bring her down here for a visit, so she did and he did.

We had a really great time with them.  After Milly had a nap we all headed out to Wrightsville Beach.  Milly already liked Jeff, but she took to Ellie really quick too.

Eleanor absolutely loved the beach and spent almost the entire time jumping waves.  I think she said she’d only been to a beach once before, about five years ago.  I gave her a couple pushes on my surfboard, but they both ended up in wipeouts, so I gave her an out and she took it.  The waves were small and close to the shore, but they were alright and I caught a few decent ones before heading in to spend time with my visiting family.

Milly got in the shallows again today, but she was done after one small wave, a bit bigger than the others, knocked her on her back and underwater for a second.  She wasn’t in any danger and Amanda had her back up almost immediately, but she just wasn’t too happy staying there after that and spent the rest of her time outside on the beach blanket.

Amanda and Milly went in after a bit and I took the opportunity to carry my surfboard back to the Frazelle house.  When I came back I caught up with Jeff and Eleanor, who had walked to the jetty and were on their way back.  When we got back near the beach blanket we bumped into Hannah and Maddie, Amanda’s cousin and her best friend.  They invited Ellie to go out snorkeling with them and Jeff and I continued on down the beach, going about halfway between Crystal Pier and the water tower before turning back around.  We had a nice talk.

We spent a good bit of time after that, Jeff, Eleanor and I, just swimming in the water (which felt great) and jumping waves and the like.  We headed back in a little after 4:00, packed everything up and went back to the house.  They took off pretty soon after getting back.  Jeff had to take Eleanor all the way back to Rougemont then he was heading to his brother David’s house.  He’s watching it while David and Oxana are on a trip.

Milly went down for a nap and we watched some TV.  We realized that we’d both gotten burned, me worse than Amanda.  We’d lathered up pretty good today, too, though I probably (well, definitely) should have put on some more sunscreen after being outside a couple hours.

Milly was a lot of fun when she got up.  She was playing with Amanda’s iPod Touch, which of course looks a lot like my iPhone, and she would hold it up to her face and say “Hello.”  It was awesome.  I mean, it wasn’t a clear “hello,” but it was definitely “hello.”  We tried calling some of her grandparents so she could say it to them, but of course she wouldn’t do it anymore by the time we got one of them.

After that, when Amanda went to feed her, Amanda was saying “yogurt” while making the sign for it.  (There’s apparently no definitively set sign for “yogurt” so we chose the one we like, which is making a “y” with your thumb and pinky then sweeping the pinky to your mouth.)  While Amanda was doing that Milly made a noise that really sounded an awful lot like she was trying to say “yogurt.”  Then Amanda asked if she wanted some yogurt and Milly nodded her head.  This is all so fun!

Congrats to the Duke Blue Devils, by the way, for locking up the third Plumlee brother.  Marshall Plumlee announced his commitment to Duke University last night.  If neither Miles nor Mason Plumlee leaves Duke after next year, there will be three Plumlee brothers on the team.  Marshall is the biggest of the three, standing seven feet tall compared to his older brothers’ 6’10″.

Zach Dotsey
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Despite the busy-ness I did go to lunch at the mall.  We went a few minutes early and picked up my new replacement wedding ring.  Amanda had “LOVE YOUR GIRLS” engraved on the inside of it, a reminder that it was also a Father’s Day present.  It’s titanium and very lightweight.  It also resembles Amanda’s wedding ring a bit.

We ate with Amanda’s grandparents and Michael, and Anna and Kirsten joined us a little later.  Milly was excited to see everyone.

Hannah and Barry, on a side note, are both about to head out of town.  Hannah’s going to Hatteras to go camping with some friends and Barry’s going to Costa Rica.

We went to a Night of Worship at Port City Community Church tonight.  The band really brought it and the crowd was really into it.  It was mostly music and singing, but there was also praying, a short message and communion.  It was really a nice thing for the church to put on.

Michael and Jenn watched Milly while we were at the church.  It started at 7:00 and we thought it would be done by about 8:00, so we let Milly go to Michael’s new apartment, but we ended up not getting out until almost 9:00, so it was a late night for the Bug.

Milly seemed to enjoy her time over there.  Everything apparently went well except for when Milly, who likes to take things and put them into other things, thought it would be cool to put Michael’s mobile phone in his drink.  Michael yelled, “No!” or something and Milly got upset and cried for a bit.  His phone is fine though, so we thought it was pretty funny.

LeBron James is leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and going to the Miami Heat with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.  He made a ginormous deal about his decision, and I don’t really care because I don’t watch the NBA, but it was all anyone was talking about for a bit today and ESPN had like a two hour special on it.

On the plus side, since those three players are pretty much maxing out the Heat’s salary cap, some people are speculating that Jon Scheyer might have a good shot at joining the team, since he’d be a rookie free agent (and therefore cheap, but filling a role).  I hope it works out for him.

Zach Dotsey

So here’s the deal.  Scott and I talked a little via email last night about how my phone is crapping out so badly, but it looks like Verizon, which has better coverage than AT&T, will be picking up the iPhone in January.  I thought, okay, great, let’s wait until then.

Then this morning I couldn’t even get rid of deleted voicemails and muttered something to Scott about that, so he told me to look around for some 3GS iPhones.  They were in stock at Best Buy and the AT&T store, so he said I could go pick one up.

Here’s the thing: there are three 3GS models.  There’s a 32 gig, a 16 gig and a new 8 gig, price $199, $149 and $99.  Scott told me to get a 16 gig, but when I sat down to talk to someone at the store, I said something about how it’s a shame they were out of iPhone 4′s because it seems silly to pay $149 for an outdated model when the newest one is only $50 more, but my phone is going out on me and I need it for next week.

The associate I talked to said, “Well, you could just buy the 8 gig, pay the 10% restocking fee and order the 4.”

What a great idea, I thought.  So I called Scott and asked if he minded that, and he said it made sense.  I even offered to pay the $60 difference ($50 more for the phone, $10 restocking fee), but he said not to worry about it.

So this is going to be like Christmas in June and Christmas in July for me.  I get to upgrade from a first generation 4 gig iPhone to a 3GS, which is a pretty huge difference as far as functions and speed go, and then a couple weeks later my iPhone 4 will come in, which has even better features than the 3GS.  What a great time, huh?

To add to how great my day has been, I did end up going surfing while Amanda worked on packing for our trip to Kentucky.  It was rainy and windy for a bit, but Barry said it looked like it would calm down and be fun, so I went on out.  Parrish Stikeleather was there, and to be honest, I was a little jealous of how well he was surfing, given how little he does it.  I did pretty well myself though, catching some nice little waves and getting some good turns in.

And let me tell you, there’s no feeling like surfing in the rain.  It’s such an awesome experience.

Amanda’s day was not as fun as mine was.  After I got home from getting my phone, she went out to take Cobb to the vet.  He was due for a checkup and some vaccines, but we also got them to check out a dander issue he’s been having, and it turns out he’s got fleas.  We’ve been bad about giving the animals their drugs, and it’s caught up with us.  I think there was also an infection or something, but now he’s got pills to take for a couple weeks, and his back just in front of his tail is shaved.  And then, of course, Amanda came home and worked on laundry and packing mixed in with some Milly watching while I worked (then played).

Speaking of Milly, we’re going through milk a lot faster now.  Last time I went to the grocery store I got a half gallon of milk because I figured we wouldn’t go through it before leaving for Kentucky, but I had to go get some this morning.  Milly and I had a nice walk to Lowe’s Food where we picked up some milk, some Rice Cripsies (they were on sale and I thought, very rightly, that Milly might like them), and a long john.

So we loaded a few things up in the car already and we’ll be heading out tomorrow afternoon.  I’m very glad that our house will be watched over.

I talked to my dad this evening and he said he’s leaving tomorrow night, too.  He and Erin will be leaving sometime in the evening, stopping by Charlotte to pick up Andra’s crew, then head on to Lexington.  It sounds like they’ll be there around 3 or 4 in the morning, whereas Amanda and I hope to get there between 11 and 12.  Dad’s leaving early because the father of one of his good friends, Pat Paine, just died and the funeral is Friday, so he wants to be there to show Pat some support.

That’s all for now.  I’m going to try to get a little work done to lighten tomorrow’s load.  I really hope Milly travels well.

Zach Dotsey

After we got home we put Milly down for a nap.  They said she’d been good in Grow Zone and she didn’t complain until we were almost home.  She went right to sleep.  Amanda made us some bagels with egg and cheese and ham.

We got Milly up and fed her a few minutes early so we could go out and pick up some birthday presents for Gavin Holloman, who was celebrating his third birthday in a little room at the movie theater at Mayfaire.  The party was Toy Story-themed and Dana, Gavin’s mom, went all out, making cookies and cupcakes that looked like characters and things from the movies.  Seth, Gavin’s dad, had a Buzz Lightyear outfit and came in dressed up in it, but Gavin told him he wasn’t Buzz.  I don’t think Gavin’s reaction was quite what Seth was hoping for, but we adults enjoyed it.  Milly really enjoyed the cupcakes.

I finally met and had conversations with Seth’s siblings, Brent and Millie.  (Spelling the name with an “-ie” instead of a “-y” is the accepted norm, but it feels so odd to type that now.)  I’d actually talked to Millie briefly before, and she said I seemed familiar, but she didn’t really remember me.  And I’d reached out to Brent on Facebook a few weeks ago just because we have a ridiculous number of friends and acquaintances in common, so it was odd that we didn’t know each other.  But now we’ve met and he’s shared his iPhone 4 with me.  (I really want one of those.)

After the birthday party just about everyone else went to see Toy Story 3, but figuring Milly isn’t ready to sit in a theater that ling yet, we just took off and went over to Anna and Barry’s.  I’d told Amanda this morning that I really wanted to go surfing if there was anything out there since I knew it would be a little while before I’d get another chance to do it.

Well, it started thundering before we got to Wrightsville Beach, and when Barry and I walked out to look at the water there was some killer lightning off in the distance.  We hung out at the house for a bit and Milly got to play with Anna, Barry, Hannah, Kirsten, Maddie, Christian and Micah.

It finally did rain a little and the weather quickly passed, so Barry and I went out for a bit.  It wasn’t too bad out.  The waves weren’t breaking quite right, but I managed to catch a few anyway.  While Barry and I were out in the water, Amanda, Anna and Milly went for a walk, but not on the beach since the wet sand would have made walking on the beach a pretty tough chore.

Milly went right to bed when we got home around 6:00.  She’d only had one nap today and that one had been cut short.  Despite that, she was pretty good all day.  It might have helped that she had all kinds of junk food at Gavin’s party and she ate a lot during her time at the Frazelles’.  She was still tired when I got her up at about 7:45, but she was so sweet sitting in my lap drinking from her sippy cup (no bottles today!) and watching the end of Knocked Up.

Zach Dotsey
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So, you remember how we had some fraudulent charges on Amanda’s check card?  A couple days ago we found out that one of the people Amanda works with, one that she often eats lunch with, also had some fraud on a card.  I looked through all the places Amanda had eaten with people at work over the last couple months and narrowed it down to a few restaurants.

Well, tonight I just happened to catch a news story that hackers had been able to steal a bunch of credit card numbers from PT’s Grille.  The story said that the FBI had checked in with PT’s and that they are now secure, but that answers that question.  I recorded the segment on the DVR for Amanda.  I went upstairs to see if she was awake, but she was out and I didn’t want to disturb her.

Most of the rest of my day was spent working.  It was a busy day and I’d have been going nuts if not for having Travis to do a good portion of what I used to do.

I did go out to help Polly Clawson set up her new laptop.  I got rid of a bunch of the crap programs that came with it, saved her a few bucks by downloading Open Office, a great and free alternative to Microsoft Office and got her network situated along with a few other little tweaks here and there.  After that I picked up my paycheck then worked, worked, worked.

I did take a break to watch Persons Unknown with Amanda after we put Milly to bed.  It came on Monday, but Amanda’s gone to bed really early every day this week so we hadn’t had a chance to watch it.  She’s feeling better, but still not 100% and she ended up going to bed after we watched the show.

The NBA draft was tonight.  Despite a lot of talk lately about Brian Zoubek, neither he nor Jon Scheyer (nor Lance Thomas, though, bless him, there wasn’t much talk about his pro prospects) was drafted.  How odd that a team can win a national championship and not have a single player get drafted.  Well, hopefully they’ll be able to get on with some team via free agency.

Zach Dotsey

I mentioned this at small group tonight and decided to assign all the babies basketball positions.  Henry Nowak is too old for the team, so I didn’t count him.  Maybe he could be the coach.  His sister, Lauren, I assigned the point guard spot since she’s smallish (though when I saw her this weekend I noticed that she’s lengthening out).  I put Jacob Johnson at the shooting guard position, though that depends on Baby Cain when he or she gets here.  Jacob might slide over to the wing while BC takes the two-spot.  We’ll see.  Milly, as I said, I have at the power forward and Felix Kay I’ve got as the center.  The kid’s only about six months old and is already wearing 12-18 month clothes.  He may have mobility issues, but it seems he’ll be able to clog up the lane pretty well.

Anyhoo, at small group we finished up the Love & Wars series and discussed (some) what we’re going to study next.  We’re going to have a social over here next week.

Travis landed his first sale with us today and was pretty excited about it.  I spent a good bit of the day trying to get in touch with clients from the website we bought back in November.  I’ve talked to a few before, but we found a way to get in touch with more of them so I was working that.  We were also contacted by a company with a very interesting proposal.  I’ll be talking to them tomorrow.  I was a little skeptical of it at first, but after hearing back from them after my first response to them, my interest is very much piqued.

Ben Lambeth called tonight.  It was mainly to wish a belated happy birthday to Milly, but we spent some time catching up.  It was good talking to him.  Even though it was a bit past her bedtime, Amanda talked to Jessica for a bit after I got off the phone with Ben.  I also had a text conversation with Joe Rumley tonight.  Popular night to catch up with people, it seems.

Zach Dotsey

Barry and I had a good time surfing.  It was small but clean, and not very crowded.  Some nice set waves came in from time to time and I got to really work on my turning today.  There were some nice little drops and we had a really good time out in the water.

Inside, Milly apparently was eating just about the whole time we were out surfing.  She ate a whole banana and some ice cream.  Amanda told me that Milly had also choked on a Goldfish, but I didn’t realize how serious it was until she was telling me more later.  It seems that Milly had put a Goldfish in her mouth, something she’s been eating for months now, and then yawned.  When she yawned the Goldfish got sucked into her throat and Amanda said she coughed once, but then she just looked at Amanda with her mouth open and couldn’t make any noise.  Amanda tried hitting Milly’s back, but that didn’t do it.  Then our baby started to turn blue.  Amanda panicked and reached into Milly’s mouth without thinking.  She could feel the offending Goldfish, and sticking her finger down there apparently caused Milly to puke.  Milly cried for a minute but was just fine.  Amanda said that she, Hannah and Kirsten, who were all in the room at the time, we shaking afterwards.

Of course, we know that sticking a finger down a baby’s throat could lodge whatever’s choking her into her throat even more, and I’ve since looked up the proper techniques for helping a choking baby.  You can find all kinds of information on that here.

Amanda opened up a bit more about how scared she was later this evening.  She said she just kept seeing Milly looking at her with her mouth open, unable to breathe.  It really is horrifying to think how badly the whole thing could have gone, and just one day before Milly’s first birthday.  I thought about how awful it would be to come in from being out in the water to hear such bad news.  Milly’s been eating food for so long that we just sort of take it for granted.  The scary thing is that Amanda said Milly wasn’t making any noises during the whole thing.  If she’d been in another room she’d have heard one cough and that was it- nothing that would have raised any suspicion of something bad going on.

The rest of the day was much less eventful than that non-event.  We went to church this morning where a new series talking about future generations was started.  Really got me thinking about being more intentional with any plans we have for Milly.

They didn’t have the cruisers room in Grow Zone today for whatever reason, so Milly was put with the immobile babies.  When I went to pick her up she saw me at the door and signed “please”.  That just melted my heart.

After church we were going to go grab breakfast with David and Oxana, but Milly was letting us know it was nap time for sure, so we suggested Sweet & Savory to them and they found it on their GPS.  I talked to David later and he said the food was good but they had to wait forever for it.

After we got back from Wrightsville Beach (where the beginning of today’s story started) Milly and I both took naps, although we took them separately.  She’s not one to nap easily outside of a confined area, like a crib or a car seat.  I napped for a good long while, even after Amanda got Milly up to feed her.

Amanda and Milly played downstairs, including a game of catch (or “roll the ball”) in the hallway with the two new rubber balls Milly got for her birthday.  Amanda later told me that after today’s episode she was wanting to give Milly some extra-special attention.  I played with her a good bit once I finally got up, too.  Part of it, I’d say, was that Milly woke up and cried for about 45 minutes last night.  I finally changed her diaper and put her back down to sleep which seemed to do the job at first, although she did cry a few times here and there for a little while after that.  I was actually already awake before she started crying in the first place though.

Since tomorrow is Milly’s actual birthday, I’m hoping work is not at all busy.  I told Amanda I was planning on working as little as possible tomorrow so I could spend time with Milly and she got jealous.  She’s going to see if she can work a half-day tomorrow and take her full day later in the week so we can all go to the park or something as a family tomorrow.  That’ll be really nice.

Zach Dotsey
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At any rate, Amanda spent a lot of time on it and she said we need to keep each other accountable about keeping it straight.

At this moment I’m finally getting around to transferring all the music I had on the old laptop to the new one.  I can never get the Homegroup to work right with any consistency even though both computers are on Windows 7.  It seems like I have to set it back up every time to get it to work, which isn’t difficult, but it’s more of  a pain than just clicking on a file to copy things over.  So I copied it all to an external hard drive the other day and now I’ve copied them over to the newer laptop and am importing them all into iTunes now.  It really seems like there should be a better way to do all that.

Milly didn’t take any more steps today (half or otherwise), but I did forget to mention a first yesterday.  I held her arms over my shoulders so she could ride on my back and ran around, which she absolutely loved.  We did that for a bit again today.  Also, right before we put her to bed, Milly was trying to play with her mom’s earrings, so Amanda took them out and gave one to her.  After playing with it for a bit Milly tried to put it back!  It was so cute and sweet.  I mean, all she was doing was sticking it back in Amanda’s hair in the general area of her ear, but it was still cute.  I took that one from her and Amanda gave her the other earring and she tried to do it again.  Such a smart little girl.

Work was still busy today, but like yesterday much of it was prep work to try to make things easier in the future.  I spent a good bit of time getting things together for Travis and we have a meeting set up for next week with an existing client.

Amanda and I played Catan online together tonight.  I dominated that game and won with 12 points to Amanda and another player’s 7 and 5 I think.  That’s pretty dominating.  The guy was from Indianapolis and we talked a good bit of hoops.

I realized today that I haven’t really talked much about the news, so I’ll just mention a couple big things going on right now.

A few weeks ago there was an oil rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico that has ended up being, I believe, the largest oil spill ever.  It’s causing all kinds of ecological and economic problems for Louisiana and Alabama, places along that coast.  BP is in serious trouble over it.

An award was given to the man who developed solar-powered cells that can be used as windows and mimic (somehow) the natural process of photosynthesis.  It’s also supposedly less expensive than most solar cell technologies, so I really hope it catches on.

The Big 10, Big 12 and Pac 10 conferences are considering shaking up their lineups.  It’s too complicated to go into, but if it happens it looks like Kansas and Kansas State are going to be left out of any power conferences.  It’s all about football revenue, which really sucks.  Kansas is one of the blue bloods of college basketball and it would really be a shame to see such a storied program end up at a nothing conference.

Zach Dotsey
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I had a pretty busy work morning and met with Travis this afternoon to go over all the services we offer and some pricing guidelines in addition to getting his set up with some of our systems.  Amanda took Milly out and about with her during that time and actually came back by the Port City Java where I had the meeting, walking up literally just as Travis had left.

Amanda and I stopped by Dick’s.  Milly was about ready for a nap so I just ran in myself and picked up a couple weights and a pull-up bar.  Right after I got home and settled back in for work, Travis called me and we made a sales call.  I talked, he listened.  I think it went alright and hope to be able to meet with the client next week.  I’m anxious to get Travis to where he can do the sales and design, freeing me up to do so much other stuff.

Amanda’s mom, Karen Mercer, came to see us tonight.  Amanda’s dad, Phil, is off building a church in Nova Scotia, so she just came to see Milly, hang out and, apparently, clean our upstairs bathroom.  Tomorrow is their anniversary, and Karen said this will be the first one they’ve spent apart.

We didn’t end up doing P90X today, and we didn’t get a chance to do it yesterday.  I’m a little frustrated at that, but we talked about what we can do about it.  Amanda and I like doing the workout together, but it’s not easy for us to do it at the same time.  I might start getting up early to do it, and she can do it in the afternoons when Milly’s napping.

John Wooden died today at the age of 99.  John Wooden coached UCLA to 10 NCAA championships.  Looking past the controversy that comes with such an unrepeatable feat, it’s an amazing accomplishment and has him cemented as one of the best coaches in any sport of all time.

Zach Dotsey
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