Zach Dotsey

Amanda, Milly and I left this morning around 9:00 on what would turn out to be the longest trip to Rougemont, normally about a two and a half hour trip, ever.

First we stopped off in Clayton at about 11:30 to see my boss, Scott.  We used the GPS to get there.  Anyway, Scott hadn’t met Milly yet and Amanda hadn’t even met his younger daughter, Ava, who is now… two or three?  Scott, Ava and his wife, Ann Marie, were all there.  Addie, the older daughter, was in school.

After that we met up with Erin at Southpoint for lunch.  We were there for a bit before she got there, then we went to look for a birthday present for her.  Since the dogs were in the car, I ended up taking Milly and heading on out while Amanda and Erin shopped.  We did get Milly her first ever Duke hat.

On the way to the Rouge I called my old buddy, Jason Revill, to update him on my goings-on, since he was going to try to meet up with us.  He was helping prepare some stuff with his parents at Aldersgate Church, so Milly and I ended up stopping by there to see them.  Nearly eight months old, and she finally gets to meet my best friend and his parents, who were like a second set of parents to me.  We tried to get together before, but it just never worked out.  It felt special to be able to introduce Milly to them.

We went on to Rougemont after that, arriving at about 4:00.  Seven hours, longest trip from Wilmington to Rougemont ever.  My dad, Andra and her baby, Addison, were there.  Addison was so sweet.  She was excited to see Milly (they’re exactly seven months apart) and kept hugging her.  Milly isn’t very advanced on her interactions with people her size yet, so I think it annoyed her more than anything else.  But it was so sweet to see.  I thought many times today that I can’t wait for them to be big enough to really play together.

Josh and Jackson arrived with Erin and Amanda right after them.  Amanda and Erin had seen Elmo and Dulce, one of my parents’ dogs and Erin’s, by the road and had picked them up.  Amanda got some poop or something on her clothes from it, so she went to change and wash her clothes.  I spent some time working this evening.

Uncle Roy got home from work as Jackson and left to find some Cold-Eeze, mainly for Amanda because she felt some sick coming on, but I had a little bit of a sore throat yesterday and thought it would be good for me too.  We went to three or four nearby places but couldn’t find any.  I had a good time riding around with Jackson.  I told him why we preferred to call my mom Mum Mum instead of Nana (a name in honor of my own grandma versus a name similar to what we’re calling Milly’s other grandma, which could make it confusing) and he told me that with my peacoat on I looked like a villain spy.  He asked if I was a spy so we talked about what situations I’d be able to tell him if I was a spy or not.

As I said, we didn’t find the Cold-Eeze, and I didn’t realize Amanda wanted them as bad as she did, so I went back out after I dropped Jackson back off at the house and this time I went towards Durham instead of towards Roxboro.  I also picked up some extra baby food because Milly was wolfing it down.  On the way back I noticed that it was lightly snowing.  Amanda’s brother, Michael, texted a little later and said it was coming down pretty heavily in Wilmington and actually sticking.

Amanda and I put Milly to bed after I got back then Erin, Josh and Andra went out and Dad went to pick up my mom, whose flight had been delayed.

Amanda got Addison to go to bed then she went to bed herself shortly after.  I snoozed on the couch while Jackson played Wii.  When he was done he wanted to watch cartoons, and while I was flipping through the channels trying to find Cartoon Network for him we came across Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which he decided he wanted to watch.

I just went to let Bruce and Harvey out to pee and the ground is already covered in snow, so tomorrow we’ll have to get some pictures of Milly out there in it.  Amanda packed warm clothes for her just in case this situation occurred.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda woke up this morning to see Milly staring at her from crib.  She wasn’t sure if Milly could actually see that far, but she was looking in our direction from between the slats of the crib.  And she woke up at 8:00, instead of earlier than usual, which is a first for this trip.  It might be a first for being away from home.

Uncle Roy came in last night and hadn’t gotten a chance to see Milly, but he did get to this morning.

Mom made a breakfast of eggs, biscuits and bacon.  It was yummers.

Elmo, one of my parents’ dogs, was found injured this morning.  Amanda called Banfield, who said that they could look at her but if her leg was broken or anything like that they’d end up passing her off to the emergency vet, so Dad, Josh and I carried her out to the car and Mom took her to the vet.  The shame of it is that my mom had gotten a later flight to Rochester for today to be around the family more, and she ended up leaving us for a chunk of time and not being able to see anybody off.

Erin called when we were almost back home and told me that Elmo’s knee had been blown out, and that it was likely just from running around.  I think surgery was mentioned, but the best option seems to be to just let it heal.

Amanda, Milly and I left after Milly’s lunchtime feeding.  After loading up the car just about to capacity we took off back to Wilmington.  Aside from Erin, who was taking Mom back to the airport later, we were the last to leave.  I wish we got to see my parents more.  I’ve got to say, everybody did a good job of splitting time with the babies.  I can’t wait for Addie and Milly to get to the age where they can really play and interact.

The drive home seemed to go by pretty fast.  Amanda and I chatted a lot, but honestly I couldn’t really tell you what we talked about now.  It was just… pleasant.  Milly continued her record of traveling well.

After we got home and unloaded the car I went back out to pick up MarioKart for the Wii, but it was sold out at Best Buy, where I have a gift card (thanks, Dain!).  I decided to go ahead and look at GameStop across the street.  They didn’t have it either, but I considered buying a few used games because they had them on a buy two get one free special.  I didn’t end up getting anything though- I’ve got enough games to play.

After I got home and we got Milly to bed Amanda and I played a good bit of Wii Fit.  Hopefully we’ll keep up with it and it will do us both some good.  After Amanda went to bed I played a bit of Wario Land Shake it!, which is a fun little side-scroller.

Tomorrow marks the return to work.  I’ve already got plenty to do, from the number of emails that I’ve read over the past couple days.  I thought about going ahead and getting started on some of it, but I decided I owe myself a little time.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I packed up and left Richlands for Rougemont a little after 10.  Actually, we were heading to Cary before the Rouge for Amanda’s extended family’s annual day after Christmas get-together, but we did make a stop near the RDU airport to meet up with my sister, Erin, to drop off Bruce and Harvey so she could take them to our parents’ house.  We wouldn’t really have any place to keep them for the couple hours we’d be at Ralph and Susan’s (Amanda’s great-uncle and -aunt) and Erin was nice enough to drive pretty far out of her way to do us this favor.

This was the first time a number of people had met Milly and of course she was a hit.  She did really well, too, being passed around and held so much.  She didn’t get fussy until almost 3:00, which was the time we were planning on leaving anyway.  We got to the Rouge at about 4:00, just in time to feed her.  I called my friend, Jason Revill, on the way and talked to him about him and his parents stopping by, but he was sick and his parents were in Burlington I believe.  He’ll meet Milly one of these days.

My baby sister arrived with her family not too long after we got to my parents’ house.  Amanda and I gave Jackson his birthday present, a pack of Legos that came with instructions to make two different jets or a boat.  Jackson and I worked on that with a small break when I put Milly down for a nap.

We opened presents a little bit after that.  Aunt Reggie came with a guy she’s seeing.  I can’t recall his name at the moment.  Richy maybe?  Milly was up before we finished opening presents so she got to do some of that.  She still wouldn’t rip open the wrapping paper by herself, but she would grip it and I’d pull the box so it would sort of tear.  Jackson didn’t mind helping her open her presents.  He was really sweet with her, picking her up and playing with her and all.  He even told me that she’s a really pretty baby.

Renee, Adam’s former fiancee, was there.  I guess she’d driven from Charlotte to Wilmington then to Rougemont with him.  It was nice to see her.

Later on, after the presents had all been opened (we got a GPS and money, as well as a juicer in the Chinese Christmas/White Christmas/whatever part) we played a few games of Wits & Wagers and Scattergories.  I almost won the last game of the former and I did win the latter.

Zach Dotsey

Kentucky ended up beating UConn last night, 64-61.  All I’m going to say about it is that John Wall is a filthy, filthy beast.

I was planning on catching up with some work this evening.  Afterall, I had a meeting this afternoon then had to do some (mostly work-related) running around after that and it cut out a chunk of my day.  Not that it wasn’t productive, but I really need to get a move on with some things.

Anyhoo, as I said, that’s what I was planning on doing, but instead I ended up Facebook chatting with a (nearly) 24 year-old Irish cousin named Lucinda O’Shea.  Adam called me and told me about her and I called Dad to ask what the deal was but he said when he’d heard a few years ago he thought it was a joke.  She actually left a comment on here a couple days ago, but I had no idea who she was.

Like I said, Lucinda and I chatted for a while.  We talked about family, of course, and who is who.  She did a search on Facebook for “Dotsey” and was asking how different ones were related to us.  I told her about her uncles and aunt and which cousins belonged to which uncles.  She said she wished she’d been able to talk to Pap before he died.

Lucinda also told me a bit about her life.  We were talking about kids and she had been in labor with her son, Adam, for 48 hours before having a c-section.  Really makes Amanda’s champion-caliber 25.5 hours look minuscule.  (Okay, not minuscule, but still!)  She has 50 or so aunts, uncles and cousins on her mom’s family’s side and told me about them.  Amazing memory, to remember all those relatives!  The offspring of Baba and Pap number a paltry 21, and I thought we had a big family.

When she got off, Lucinda said it was, what, 3 or 4am there in Ireland.  She’d been up all night catching up with us.  She said she was crying looking at some of the family pictures.  She said she’ll be checking airfare rates to try to come to the US for a visit.  Really hope we get to meet her.

So, what else happened today?  It’s Amanda’s grandma’s birthday, so happy birthday to you, Peggy Lemons!

Milly continued the thing she’s doing where she’s really fussy unless she’s sleeping or being held.  That’s not entirely true- there was a time during which I had three work calls to take care of in quick succession and she was good during those.

I had a meeting with someone I think will be a very good client.  It’s always great to bring in new clients who are engaging and excited about their project.  It makes working with them that much more fun.

I talked to my oldest friend, Jason Revill, while I was driving around doing my errands.  Nothing big, just catching up.

Amanda’s definitely sick.  She’s a bit stuffy and worn down.  Hopefully that will pass soon without passing on to me or Milly.  I swear, it seems like it’s been a month or more since everyone in the house has been completely healthy.

I talked to Adam, Dad and Andra today about Christmas plans.  Adam was on IM (actually, he might have been yesterday) and Dad and Andra were on a conference call.  Our original plan, dating back to last year and reiterated about a month ago, was that we’d all get together the weekend of New Year’s, but it’s looking like it might be the day after Christmas.  We’d have a lot more time to spend in the Rouge if we went with the original plan.

I think that about covers the day today.  I can’t believe it’s almost Friday.

Zach Dotsey

Per Andra’s Facebook:

update on josh: while he may look really bad he’s in good humor and basically himself as far as attitude goes the break was worse than they thought it would be, broken in2 places where is attaches to the skull and the cheek bone was crushed so they had to reconstruct it. he has a total of 3 small titanium plates and he should heal good as new with only a tiny scar at his eyebrow. thanks again for the prayers!

Right now I’m watching the Final Four game from 1991 between Duke and UNLV.  It was on ESPN Classic yesterday so I set the DVR to record it.  It’s a great story.  UNLV had defeated Duke in the championship the previous year with a record championship game margin of victory.  UNLV was undefeated in 1991 and were thought to be unstoppable.  Of course, Duke avenged the previous year’s loss then went on to beat a Roy Williams coached Kansas team in the final game for their first ever NCAA championship.

Nick picked me up this morning and drove me to church where I ran the mobile floor camera for the morning services.  Amanda came to the 11:00 service and sat with Michael and Jenn, who also came today.  Seth was there too.

Milly was a little fussy throughout a good portion of the day, which I attribute to daylight savings time, since we’re doing everything an hour later today according to her internal clock.  (One good reason to get rid of DST- it confuses babies.)  Amanda said Milly woke up at about 7:30 (which was 8:30 to her), but Amanda got her to go back to sleep for another 20 minutes or so before getting her up and feeding her.

After we got back from church Milly and I took a decent nap while Amanda decided to clean up and rearrange the living room.  I woke up in time to help make some decisions and move some things around.  We’ve got a lot more space in the living room now, and we freed up some space in the dining room as well.  After we finished that we watched a bit of TV.

I was really irritated that my cough showed no signs of going away, but it’s lessened in intensity and frequency by this evening.  I’d considered going to a doctor about it, but if it continues to get better tomorrow I’ll just let it go.

Zach Dotsey
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Amanda went to Old Navy again this morning, this time to actually take advantage of a discount.  Milly and I just hung out.  She was a bit fussy throughout a good portion of the day and she never really took much of a nap.  Shortly after Amanda got home her parents arrived and we all headed downtown to meet Michael and Jenn for brunch.  The place they wanted to eat had a forty minute wait, however, and Michael had to be at work around that time so we went to Front Street Brewery instead and had lunch.  And thus came about Milly’s first trip to Front Street Brewery, as well as the first time she sat in a high chair at a restaurant.

After lunch Amanda, her parents, Milly and I (Michael and Jenn had already left)walked over to Killwin’s for some ice cream.  We walked to the riverfront for a minute or two then took off back home to do not much of anything for a bit.  When they left they took their pressure washer with them.  We’ve had it for quite a while and I never got around to using it.  My own fault.

We tried jumping my car again.  I had returned the jumper cables I previously bought and got some heavier duty ones, but these were apparently not enough either.  Bonnie came over from across the street to see if she could help, but ultimately said we could use her jumper cables, which are really heavy duty, tomorrow.

After that we dressed Milly up in her kitty cat Halloween costume, which was obviously very cute.  Unfortunately though, it’s a very thick costume and it was about 80 degrees outside, so we took off the top part of it before we left to drop her off at Anna and Barry’s.  We did put it back on once we got there though, before we went and knocked on the door.

We hung out at the Frazelles’ for a bit.  They all seemed really excited to be watching Milly tonight.  Kirsten had plans to go out (although she apparently stayed in to watch after Milly), Hannah was having some friends over and Anna and Barry were planning on just hanging out.

When we left there we stopped by Starbucks to get some food and drink then Amanda had a costume idea.  We weren’t really planning on going out as anything, but based on what we were wearing I said that she could be stripes (because she was wearing a shirt with a bunch of stripes) and I could be a tape (because I was wearing a shirt with a picture of a cassette tape).  She said something about The White Stripes then came up with the idea of getting some black t-shirts and putting a white piece of tape across them and going as The White Stripes.  I thought that was a very clever idea.

We showed up at the Konny’s right at 8:00 and learned how to play Mafia.  I won’t go into explaining it too much, but we had a really fun time with it.  One to two people in the group are picked to play the Mafia and have to discretely take other people out, then everyone else has to guess who’s in the Mafia.  In the first game I was the first victim, which Blake, my murderer, apologized for later.  A couple games later, Amanda accused me of being Mafia, even though I wasn’t.  Her reasoning was that I was doing a lot more accusing that game, which is true, but it was the first game where I had feelings about who was in the Mafia.  I was right, too.

We left there a little after 11:00 to go pick up Milly.  Hannah and her friends were watching the end of The Blair Witch Project, which I hadn’t seen in a while, so I watched that.  Anna and Barry told us that Milly had been great, which is good.  Anna talked to me about getting Hannah and Kirsten to start coming over on Mondays to watch Milly while I work, which would be awesome.  I mean, I really love having all that time with Milly, but it would hopefully keep me from needing to work all hours into the night to get things done as often.

Milly was in a great mood on the way home.  Usually she falls asleep pretty fast in the cars eat, but she babbled happily on from Wrightsville all the way back to the house.  She seemed wide awake when we put her down, but she went right to bed again without any fuss.

Duke beat Virginia 28-17 in football today, the first time in 20 years that Duke has had three consecutive ACC wins.  Pretty awesome.

Overall today was a pretty good day for us, but it wasn’t as good for the Sawyers, my baby sister’s family.  Andra had posted on Facebook that Josh had been headbutted while played in a rec league soccer game today and from what was posted I thought he just had a concussion.  My mom called later though and told me that Josh’s face had been broken.  I talked to Andra later on and I can’t remember exactly what happened, but basically a guy ran into Josh then walked off laughing about it.  Basically, it seems to have been on purpose.  In a REC LEAGUE GAME, which ultimately doesn’t mean anything, this guy had some issue so he headbutted my brother-in-law and broke bones in his face.  Andra said that Josh basically doesn’t have a left cheekbone right now.  He’ll be undergoing surgery in the morning.  Everything should be fine, except things are already tough for them, they’ll have a pretty big deductible to pay plus Josh, who is self-employed, will be out of work for a while.  Keep them in your prayers.

Zach Dotsey

Milly didn’t sleep well last night.  She was up for a little while around 6:00 but we ended up getting her back to sleep again.  She woke up again around 9:00, which was surprising to me and Amanda.  It was nice to be able to sleep in a little more.

We both had sore throats, and since we both had them I don’t think it’s a cold.  Maybe it’s being around the horses and the hay, I don’t know.

Mom and Dad made a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon.  We all ate and hung out for a bit before I took off to Duke by myself.  Dad was going to go, but he’s got a bit of a cold and the forecast says rain, so he didn’t want to stand, sick, in the rain for a few hours.  Amanda was going to the basketball game, but she isn’t a fan of football and didn’t want to go to that (and stand in the rain doing so).  I knew there wouldn’t be time to go from Duke back to Rougemont and back to Duke again between games and we were making plans on how to work that out when Dad said he’d take her.

In the hang out time in between breakfast and my departure, Milly rolled over for the first time.  She can roll from her stomach to her back and from her back to her side.

I met up with Seth Holloman, Randal Kennedy, Matt Tedder and a few other guys from the Duke board before we walked over to Wallace Wade.  They were handing out Duke hand towels, which I got three of.  It rained off and on pretty much the whole game except for during halftime and when the game was over, of course.  I had a great time though, and Duke beat Maryland 17-13.  It should have been a higher score, but Thad Lewis fumbled the football on the two yard line, which sucked.  Duke got it back shortly after that though, and could have probably scored again but they took consecutive knees to run the clock out.

After the game we all headed back over to the parking lot, where Aunt Reggie dropped Amanda off.  She’d been over to the house and doesn’t live too far from Duke, so she volunteered to take her to save Dad the trip.  Erin, Adam, Andra, Josh and Addison were all at the house too, so between all of them and my parents, Milly had plenty of people to watch after her.  Well, not that Addison could really help, being only seven months older, but still.  Jackson, in case you’re wondering, stayed in Gastonia with his other grandmother so he could go to two birthday parties.

Amanda and I made our way over to Cameron Indoor Stadium along with everyone else.  We picked up a pizza, Cracker Jacks and some water there for $14 (as I hadn’t had any sustenance save a couple doughnuts and a few cans of beer since breakfast) and headed off to our seats.  We were only one row from the very back, but in Cameron even the nosebleed seats aren’t nosebleed seats.  We happened to sit next to another guy from the Duke board.

The game was a lot of fun.  Amanda really enjoyed her first trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium.  Duke blew Pfeiffer out, as expected.  The final score was 129-70.  There was a lot of good in it.  Freshman Ryan Kelly scored the second most points (behind Kyle Singler) and Mason Plumlee had a one handed dunk from just about the free throw line.  Ridiculous.  Harrison Barnes looked like he was having a great time, too.  The Cameron Crazies made a life-sized cardboard cutout of him in a Duke uniform along with a few banners, but the cutout got taken away.  There were a few chants too, like “Harrison Barnes (point at Barnes), this is home (point at the floor)!”

So that was my day of Duke.  I really enjoyed it, and Amanda enjoyed her first Duke game.

Back home, Amanda and I hung out with the family after taking a peek at our sleeping baby.  Mom freaked out because the soles of my feet were brown and she thought they were going to rub off on the carpet.  When Rainbows get wet that just happens.  So talked and hung out and watched some Kentucky football then parents and Addison went to bed.   The rest of us played MarioKart on the Wii for a bit.  I got beat once, by Erin.  I was just about to overtake her at the end of the final lap when a red shell hit me.  Dangit.

Zach Dotsey