Amanda slept terribly last night, and so did Milly.  I think I got them sick with whatever it is I’m still getting over.  I’m feeling much better, personally, though I’m still snotty.  Anyway, Amanda decided she was going to just sleep in today, so she missed out on church.  The rest probably did her some good.

So I was in at 7:00 this morning to run a mobile camera at PC3.  I bumped into Nick Warkentien when I first got there.  In the time since I’ve seen him he’s grown himself a nice, respectable beard.  We talked for a minute before I let him go to finish running off to do whatever it was he was on his way to do.  It just feels so weird that we didn’t hang out with him and Amy at all in the month of July.

Anyway, I enjoyed shooting video this morning at church.  Everything went pretty smoothly and I left after the music was finished for the second service.

Amanda told me that Milly had slept until 10:45 this morning.  That’s crazy!  And she was really good all day, too.  She played a lot and was in a great mood.  Milly was playful and chatty, interactive but not clingy.  It’s pretty amazing, considering how snotty her nose was.  She danced to some music while we were watching Little Miss Sunshine and clapped when we clapped for her.  That was kind of a big deal because she hasn’t really clapped all that much before.  When we were upstairs she’d get in her swing and do “Awww” with just about any object we gave her.

With Amanda being sick and me not having had as much sleep as I should recently, given that I’ve been sick and am still recovering, most of our day today involved sitting around.  I sat around, took a nice long nap in the guest room then sat around some more.  We kind of needed it.

Karen called Amanda tonight while we were watching a pre-Shark Week show on Discovery about sharks.  She’s thinking about trading her Droid for Amanda’s RAZR, which is just a slim flip phone.  Amanda said she’d do it, but she it’s not worth it to her if she has to pay for the requisite data plan.  She’d really like a nice new phone like that, but it’s not that big of a deal to her.

I’m in bed now at 8:40 PM.  Amanda asked me if I’d go to bed and watch a movie or a show with her and I acquiesced.  We’ll be watching Arrested Development.  I am kind of tired, so I don’t know how many episodes I’ll make it through.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda would have done that, but to get a Droid you have to have a data plan.  Amanda’s currently on her parents’ family plan, for which we pay $20 a month.  The data plan would double that, which would make being on her parent’s plan nearly moot, since the reason we got on it was to avoid paying $50 a month for the plan she was on by herself before.  Anyway, her mom, who has never once had a bran new phone, is getting the other Droid.  It’s kind of comical, Karen getting a phone like that.

At any rate, we, the Dotsey family and the Lambeth family, ate downtown then walked along the river and the farmers’ market.  Amanda bought some cinnamon sugar bread, basically a giant cinnamon roll.  We stopped in Finkelstein Music so Ben could look at a bass similar to one he just bought then headed on home.

Our road is about to get paved.  We found this out because Bonnie talked to someone who talked to someone who looked like he was part of some kind of crew that had been around our neighborhood lately.  That’s all well and good, but it would have been nice if they had let people know.  I actually talked to a guy yesterday morning about it and he told me they were about to go door to door to tell people.  This was about 10:00 on a Friday morning.  You know, when most people are at work.

Anyway, the guy told me they were paving our road Monday, which meant that I needed to move the Olds off the street.  Since the battery has been out of commission since about forever, we pushed the car up the driveway after the babies went to sleep.  Amanda was steering (because apparently Jessica is terrible at backing up) and Jessica claimed that Ben and I couldn’t have done it without her.  Ben and I were both wearing Rainbows so we had trouble getting traction with all the sand that had piled up right before the driveway, but we kept starting further back and getting more momentum each time.  I’m fine with Jessica having her day in the sun, so I won’t give my opinion on the matter.  (Love ya, Jess!)

When Milly and Graelyn got up again (man, it’s so great that they’re on pretty much identical schedules!) we went to check out a new frozen yogurt bar that everyone’s been talking about lately called The Fuzzy Peach.  It was started recently by three UNCW grads and is a pretty cool place.  You pick your frozen yogurt and add whatever toppings you want (and they’ve got a lot of them) then they charge you by the weight.  Amanda and I both learned that you didn’t need to fill your bowl up to get enough to eat.  Milly and Graelyn loved it and both made age-appropriate messes of themselves.

After that we went to Best Buy to pick up a movie.  Amanda has wanted to buy Across the Universe and Ben and Jessica hadn’t seen it yet, so we got that.  Fortunately, it was on sale, though we didn’t know that until we got to the checkout.  It looks like Blu-Ray movies are finally coming down to what DVD prices used to be, which is nice.

Milly and Graelyn surprisingly (because they’d had frozen yogurt) went down for afternoon naps and we played another game of Phase 10.  I started off doing terrible, but ended up winning again, which I guess makes me the undisputed Phase 10 champ for the weekend.

Even though Milly had acted (and very likely been) tired, she fussed a good deal while we were playing the game and we got her (and later, Graelyn) up before the game was through.  After they had been fed, Ben and I watched them in the nursery.  They did interact a bit more then, playing in boxes and with toys and such.  We even put Graelyn (who is three months younger and a good bit smaller) in Milly’s lap in the swing.

It was fun watching them.  Milly turned on the music on her swing and shook her little butt to it and even cuddled her Sweetpea doll.  She’d hold it to her chest with both arms and kind of swing back and forth a little, then she gave it to Ben to do the same.  When she does that, Amanda and I always say, “Awww,” and Milly makes that sound now when she does it.

Karen and Phil, Amanda’s parents, came to town to pick up Karen’s new Droid from Michael.  Phil, Ben and I went out to pick up some pizza and beer and Michael showed up a little after we got back.  He was showing Karen how to use the Droid, which has a keyboard that slides out from the back of it.  Karen literally jumped when he did that, which got a good laugh from everyone.  It really is a lot more phone than I think Karen will ever use, being able to play music and movies, get on the internet, check email, text with ease and all.  I told Amanda I bet she’d be trading phones with Phil (who has a Blackberry, which is still a smartphone but a little less complex than a Droid for someone who doesn’t know how to use such things) within five days.

(Karen, I know you read this.  Don’t hold out just to prove me wrong!)

After everyone left and the babies were put to sleep, Ben, Jessica, Amanda and I watched Across the Universe.  I think a second viewing held up well, but it’s not a movie I could see myself watching all the time.

We all went to bed after that.  Ben and Jessica are taking off early tomorrow to make it to church in time for a function Jessica has to oversee and I’m doing cameras at Port City Community Church tomorrow.

Zach Dotsey

For breakfast this morning Amanda and Jessica made pancakes, eggs and sausage, all of which was enjoyed by everyone, including the baby girls.  They did sort of play together some, but it was mostly in Milly wanting whatever Graelyn was playing with.

When Milly and Graelyn went down for a nap, Amanda and Jessica went out to do some shopping while Ben and I stayed home and both worked on some work.  Despite the extra time I put in yesterday I had quite a bit to do today.

Once the babies were up and fed they were put in the pool and the sandbox to play.  I took a bit of a break to hang out with everyone outside and finished up my work once they were back to napping.  When they were up again we all went to Wrightsville Beach.  On the way there Milly made clicking sounds with her tongue for the first time.  She can do it easily and seems to do it whenever I do it.

The water was extremely flat at the beach, which is just as well because I might have wanted to catch a few waves had there been any.  The baby girls played in the shallow water, Graelyn more than Milly.  The baby who actually lives at the beach didn’t want to go in very far today and contented herself playing with wet sand.  Amanda found a ton of sand fiddlers and kept bringing Milly handfuls of them to show her.  Milly would pick them up and toss them on the ground to watch them scurry back under the sand.

The water was ridiculously clear today, and with it being as calm as it was it was very easy to see the floor.  I walked around in waist to chest-high water looking to see if I could find a conch or something cool like that.  I saw lots of fish, but nothing too terribly interesting.

Back at home we had burritos for dinner.  The babies got to eat burrito ingredients, which they liked.  Milly was sitting at the table prior to dinner and attempted to choke herself on macaroni and cheese and chips.  I was pretty surprised with myself at how quickly and efficiently I unbuckled her from her booster seat and got her to spit out a clump of food by smacking her on the back a couple times.

We were all very full after dinner.  The babies were put to bed and once it was discovered that Ben and Jessica also watch Friday Night Lights we watched tonight’s episode.  (I love the show, but what a downer of a season it’s turning out to be so far!)  After that we played a game of Phase 10, which I was able to win.  We wound down by introducing the Lambeths to The Soup before Amanda and Jessica retired for the evening.  Ben and I stayed up and chatted and watched Pit Boss, which neither of us had watched before.  It was alright.  It’s a show about midgets who run a talent agency for midgets and rescue put bulls on the side.  The boss almost got jumped by a bunch of guys when he discovered a dog fight in someone’s backyard.

Zach Dotsey

Anyway, we started asking her to give us kisses, which she’d do, except she’d stick her tongue out so she was actually more or less licking our cheeks, and when she did, we’d go: “Awwww.”  It sounded like she was trying to imitate is in saying that.  After a little bit of that though, she’d lean against me and wrap her arms around my neck and kiss my cheek.  It was SO adorable!  Of course, as soon as Amanda tried to get a video she stopped and wouldn’t do it again.  Mind you, Milly’s never been one to show affection like that very much before.

Our cable remote died today.  We’ve had the same one for about five years or so, so I guess it’s about time we got a new one anyway.  We wanted to watch an episode of Wipeout that was recorded yesterday and I found out that there were controls to access recorded shows on the cable box.  It would be nice if there were more controls on it though.  We couldn’t fast forward, and since it was a special two hour Wipeout, we didn’t make it to the end of it.

Work was ridiculous today.  The morning wasn’t so bad, but here’s my call log over the course of just over half an hour: 3:29, 3:31, 3:37, 3:38, 3:39, 3:45 (x2), 3:48, 3:51, 3:53, 4:02, 4:03, 4:04.  I was able to get a lot done though.  And on the plus side of all that, three days ago my commission for the month was extremely subpar, but as of today it’s at a little over my minimum comfort level.  That’s a good thing.

This evening, Travis and I were discussing a website idea of his (Mona’s, actually), and we got sidetracked discussing another website idea that I got while thinking of a solution for him.  It’s a pretty simple idea, but I think it could be a really good one.

Amanda kept herself busy this afternoon after she got off work.  She picked up a Little Caesar’s pizza on the way home and took Milly to Wal-Mart to get a few things for this weekend after lunch.  She plans on doing a good bit of cleaning tomorrow in anticipation of the arrival of the Lambeth clan.

Amanda’s like a kid at Christmas when Ben and Jessica (and now Graelyn, of course) come for a visit.  Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing them too, but Amanda gets excited for days before they get here.  It’s really sweet.

So, how was I feeling today?  Well, I went to bed at about 9:30 last night.  I think I might vaguely remember Amanda getting home from small group, but I do know I woke up around 1 or 2 in the morning and felt like I would’t get back to sleep, though I did before too long.  I didn’t feel wiped out today, but my throat hurt a little more and I was congested a bit.  I took a Mucinex and that seemed to dry me out some.  I just hope I feel a lot better tomorrow so I don’t have to worry about playing with Milly or kissing her, and so I won’t infect any Lambeths on their trip.  I’m about to go to bed now, which is later than last night but earlier than my usual.

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

I will say that there have been a lot of upsets so far.  I think the lower seed advanced in all the ACC games except one, that being Carolina.  I’ll give them this though- they actually played pretty well in the first half and had up to a twelve or so point lead over Georgia Tech, who had already swept the Heels in the regular season.  Georgia Tech came out pretty strong in the second half though, and I figured once it got close that they’d pull through and win, which they did.

Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh, all Big East teams, were all upset today too.  I just hope all the upsets stop by noon tomorrow, when Duke plays Virginia (who upset Boston College).

On the subject of Duke, they got a verbal commitment from Michael Gbinije (ben-ee-jee?) today.  He’s part of the 2011 class and is currently rated as one of the top 15 player in the country.  Congrats to both him and Duke University!

Billy Supplee and Cyra Sherburn came over for dinner and The Office tonight.  I was in the middle of changing Milly when they got here, but she had gotten up and wandered off before I  put a diaper back on her, so we let her greet them at the door like that.  This may sound funny, but it’s so cute when she’s crawling around on the floor with her tiny bare butt.

Speaking of Milly crawling around, I’m looking forward to a time when we can get her a kiddie pool.  Every time she goes to the kitchen she heads for the water bowl.  She likes to put her hand in it and splash it around a little.  That girl loves the water, so I think it’s good that she’ll be growing up going to the beach a lot.  That’s the plan anyway.

A few weeks ago, Seth and Dana Holloman turned me and Amanda on to an iPhone/iPod app called Words with Friends.  It’s basically online Scrabble.  Amanda and I had a really close game going, but she won in the end.  That was my first loss.  So far I’ve beaten a random player and Dana and lost to Amanda.  I think I’ll beat Seth and Ben Lambeth, who also has the game.  Amanda and I started a new game tonight and we’re also both playing Billy.  No idea how those game will go yet.

Zach Dotsey

When we got home I dozed a bit, and I think Ben did too.  Other than that he and Jessica got things ready to go and took off around 1 or 1:30 I think.  It was so great to be able to spend the weekend with them.  I we talked about getting them down here again in July.

Amanda and I watched a bit of TV and I played some Empire Total War, which runs so much better on the new laptop than it did the last laptop or the desktop.  Around 6:30 I ran out to the store to return District 9 and pick up a couple things from the grocery store, but the Redbox machine was out, so I went to Wal-Mart to do that and pick up a couple things I hadn’t already gotten (since I bought the other stuff before remembering that I needed to return the movie).

Wally World was fine until I got to the checkout line.  I know it tends to get busy on Sunday nights, but I have never seen such long lines at Wal-Mart.  I literally waited 20 minutes to buy dish detergent, baby oatmeal and some puffs.  What got me really irritated is that I, of course, picked a slow-moving express lane, which I dealt with okay, but then they opened up a lane next to mine when I was the next person in line.  That would have been fine too, but the people in front of me had a bunch of items (the express lane being for people with 20 items or less) and took forever.  And by the time I noticed the next lane over was open, literally everybody behind me had already shifted over to it.  It just really irritated me, particularly since I was expecting to be gone for ten minutes tops and I ended up being gone for over an hour, a good chunk of it wasted waiting in line.  I would have just returned the movie and left, but I didn’t notice the line until I’d gotten my stuff already.

The rest of the night was better though.  Milly was happy to see me when I got home and the Duke game at Virginia was about to come on.  Amanda warmed me up some steak and green beans while I fed Milly then we watched the first half together.  Amanda was beat, so she went to bed at the half.  Duke had a good lead at that point already, having started on a 20-4 run.  There were mostly bench players on the court for the Blue Devils with about eight minutes left in the game and by the end it was all bench and reserves.

Duke won it 67-49, though the game wasn’t even that close since, like I said, the starters were out for a good portion of the second half.  I’ll give Virginia some credit though- they were without their star player, Sylven Landesberg.  Still, it was a good win for Duke, especially on a weekend where so many top teams got beat.  Purdue, which is ranked third, also lost.  They’re down their key player, Robbie Hummel, also, but he’s expected to be out for the season.  This should move Duke to the top four and, if they win out against Maryland and UNC, they should be getting a one seed in the NCAA Tournament.  Really though, they’ve got the same record as the Boilermakers along with a better RPI and strength of schedule, so they should probably have already been in that spot, but whatevs.

Zach Dotsey

In my own life, Amanda got up with Milly this morning, which was nice.  She fed her then put her i n bed with me after she ate.  My baby was in a good mood.

A little later we, along with the Lambeths, ate a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage then went over to the Frazelles’.  Ben mentioned wanting to see them, plus he and Jessica wanted to take Graelyn out to see the beach.  I don’t know if the girls were off their schedules or what, but Milly and Graelyn took turns being fussy, Milly more so.  Since Milly was being so fussy (and Graelyn wasn’t at that point), Amanda, Milly and I stayed in the house while the Lambeths went to get a few pictures.  It was also cold and there are giant pipes running the length of the beach since they’re pumping sand to one spot to replenish it.

Anyway, we hung out with Anna, Barry and Kirsten (Hannah made an appearance as well) then headed on back to the house after stopping to pick up some steaks for dinner.  We also got some cake in celebration of my impending birthday.

We gave Milly and Graelyn a bath together, which was fun.  We used Milly’s bathtub thing and put Graelyn in the seat part with Milly in the deeper part.  They both love baths and seemed to have fun in there.

Milly, as I think I’ve mentioned lately, has been really distracted while being fed lately.  Everyone else was busy getting dinner ready while I was trying to keep Milly entertained (as I said, the babies were very fussy today) and since Amanda, Ben and Jessica had talked about Veggie Tales earlier, I thought I’d pull up some Veggie Tales videos on YouTube for Milly to see what she thought.  Well, it held her attention, and she drank all her formula while watching them.  I suppose it’s the dawn of the electronic nanny era in our household.  I’m a little ashamed to admit that.

Dinner was great.  Ben fixed the steak and we also had green beans and salad.  Amanda’s salad is always good, but it seemed even better than usual tonight, and Ben’s steak was just outstanding.  After that we ate some very yummy cake and sat around talking insurance and politics for a bit before settling into watching District 9, which Ben got from the Redbox at Lowe’s Food.  I don’t think anyone else liked it as much as I did, but I’ve been wanting to see it since before it was in the theaters and I was not disappointed in the least.  I thought it was really, really good.

Harvey was very smelly tonight.  I don’t know what the deal was, but he smelled like fish.  He did yesterday too, but Amanda was able to wipe him down with some Nature’s Miracle to take care of it, but that didn’t work tonight so I ended up giving him a bath.  He smells much better now.

I think the plan is to forgo church tomorrow morning.  As I understand it’s mostly going to be sort of a call for volunteers, and since Amanda and I together volunteer three out of four weeks a month and Ben and Jessica will be leaving, not to mention that we were up later than usual tonight and it will probably be stressful getting the babies all ready on time, I think we’re just going to get up and go grab some breakfast.

It was Upset Day in college hoops.  First, Kentucky got beat by Tennessee then Kansas got beat by Oklahoma State, so the top two teams in the nation, both with only one previous loss, both lost in the same day.  Georgetown, ranked 11, was beaten by unranked Notre Dame and Texas A&M beat Texas.  That one wasn’t a huge upset as they were ranked 21 and 22, but Texas was #1 earlier in the season and I think started out at #2.  In the ACC, Carolina finally got a win, this one coming at the expense of Wake Forest on their own court, which has to be embarrassing this year.  That irritated me because the Tar Heels were tied with NC State for last place in the ACC, but then NC State finally got another win (over Miami), so the Heels are still at the bottom, but now it’s a three-way tie between the Heels, the Wolfpack and the Hurricanes.  Of the three though, the Heels have the worst overall record, so that’s nice consolation.

Zach Dotsey

At least that’s how Jessica tells the story.  I suspect it’s not far from the truth.

Milly was asleep when the Lambeths got here last night, but she got to see them this morning.  She and Graelyn are a little out of sync with their schedules though, so they haven’t had a whole lot of interaction time, not that either is at an age where they interact a whole awful lot with other babies anyway.  Still, watching them, I couldn’t help but look forward to a time when they’re big enough to play together or hang out together on visits.  Later on we went to meet Ella-Jane Clark, and I thought about Graelyn coming to visit and Milly taking her to hang out with her friends at the beach or something.  It’s just fun to think about the future.

After breakfast and a short trip the Lambeths took to the local branch of the company Ben works for (where he used to work for them) we all went to the mall to grab some food and, mainly, so the ladies could look at baby clothes.  Milly and Graelyn got matching outfits from Baby Gap and are expected to have pictures taken in them tomorrow at the beach.

I was, for the record, checking my email regularly and answered a few calls from clients.  Fortunately, it wasn’t a very busy day.

After the mall we went to the Port City Java on Shipyard, where I used to often go while working when we lived in Sunset Park, just to kill some time before going to see Elliot, Melissa and Ella.  For the record, her name is Ella-Jane Ryan Clark, whereas I though before that Jane was her middle name.  So they did like we did in combining two names to make up the first name, but where we just combined them for Meliamae, they hyphenated.  I still wish we’d capitalized the second M to make it easier for people to figure the name out.  MeliaMae.  Then again, that doesn’t look at good typed out, does it?

We stopped to pick up some dinner for Elliot and Melissa then headed on over.  Ella was born three weeks early, and she’s so tiny!  I saw some pictures of her and thought she looked like a little gnome.  She’s so tiny that premie clothes are loose on her.  We hung out there for a while and caught up with Elliot and Melissa then headed out when Milly started getting a little fussy.

We got back home and the ladies worked on food while I worked on some work then fed Milly after she napped.  She had fallen asleep on the way home and I put her right down when we got in, and she really didn’t seem to want to get up when I did get her up to feed her.  Nick, Amy and Eli came over and all three kids were fed and put to bed before the adults had dinner and played Puerto Rico.  In order to accommodate six players we took a few pieces from Nick and Amy’s game.  I just read that there is a six player setup, and we were pretty close to it.  Amanda won by a good bit, followed by Nick or Amy, me, then Ben or Jessica.

Zach Dotsey

You know, I just realized that I forgot to mention that Carolina played Florida State and lost by 10, though the game wasn’t even as close as that makes it sound.  They’re now tied for last in the ACC with NC State.  Some polls show the Heels as being ahead since they beat the Wolfpack twice, but some have the Pack ahead because they have a better overall record.

Amanda spent a good portion of the day picking up, cleaning and vacuuming around the house in preparation of the arrival of the Lambeth clan.  Ben, Jessica, Graelyn and Mack got here around a quarter past nine.  Mack and Harvey spent all night playing out in the yard while Bruce hung out inside where Amanda and I introduced Ben and Jessica to Puerto Rico.  Amanda won.  I scored seven less than she did and Ben and Jessica tied with one point less than me, though Ben won the tiebreaker since he had more money.

We got to hang out with Graelyn a bit before that though.  She’s five months old now and so cute.  It’s funny how light she is, and yet she’s a sizable baby for her age.  I’m just so used to holding Milly, you know.  She interacted with me some and gave me a few smiles.

Harvey won’t leave his infected paw alone.  He was able to lick it even with his cone on, so I ended up electrical taping his bandage and gauze onto his foot and Amanda went by Dineen Animal Hospital to get a larger cone.  It’s so funny how he bumps into everything when he’s got it on.

I woke up a little late this morning.  Usually I’ll hear Milly making noises if I sleep in some, but she slept in too.  My morning was a mad scramble which wasn’t helped by my baby’s unwillingness to drink much of her formula.  It’s funny- she’ll drink hardly any formula but she’ll eat all of her oatmeal.  She wolfs that stuff down these days.

It was very cold today.  I even heard reports of a little bit of snow being sighted (though none accumulated at all), but it’s supposed to warm up tomorrow.

Zach Dotsey