As it has been, work was extremely busy today, but I made sure to stop on time because me and my lady were going out to celebrate our fourth anniversary tonight!

We got a little dressed up- Amanda wore a new blue dress and I wore the shirt Anna Frazelle gave me for my birthday.  Michael, when he saw us, asked if we were trying to match, which we were not, but we did both have pretty similar blues.  We parked by the Port City Java where he works and stopped in the say hi before walking through half of downtown to arrive at The George, a restaurant on the Cape Fear River where my brother, Adam Dotsey, used to work.  We’d never been there but we had heard good things and enjoyed our food.

Between the money Amanda’s mom had given us for our anniversary (to go out someplace nice) and the discount coupon we used it didn’t really cost us anything, although we both ordered a martini which combined for a little over a quarter of the bill.  Amanda got one that tasted like lemonade and ordered me an orange one.  I couldn’t pick between the orange and the cherry and told her to surprise me as I was going to go use the bathroom before we ordered.

Yes, I know, fruity martinis and fruity.  What can I say?  They taste good.

We walked back to where we parked our car and I took some pictures along the way.  The weather was nice and we were in a good mood and an older fellow saw us and asked if we would like him to take a picture for us, since we were trying to take ones of ourselves.  It would have turned out nice if Amanda hadn’t blinked.

We sat at the Port City Java for a bit and chatted with Michael while he worked.  The girl he was working with was on the phone the whole time and I didn’t once see her interact with a customer.  At one point she did do some sweeping, but Michael told her she could probably do it better if she didn’t have to hold her head like so (with the phone between it and her shoulder). 

Amanda and I decided to walk across the street to take some touristy pictures.  Right across the street is a store used in the show One Tree Hill called Clothes Over Bro’s (note the inappropriate use of the apostrophe, unless it’s being used to signify the shortening of the word "brothers," but "bro" is such a commonly-used word that I don’t think that’s necessary).  Anyway, a girl walked by while I was taking a picture of Amanda and she sort of smiled at us.  I felt compelled to tell her that we were, in fact, locals.

Amanda made me get a picture in the front of the store, which was decorated as Karen’s Cafe, apparently a coffee shop used in the show or something.  I don’t know, I don’t watch it.  After that we went back to the PCJ.  A sailor was in there decked out in his whites.  The submarine "North Carolina" was docked a little past downtown (we saw people lining up to take tours down the river to see it) and he said something to another person in there about being there for that.  Amanda and I were talking about our pictures and when the sailor left she said she "should do it with the sailor."  I jumped all over her for that.  If she’s not allowed to do it with me for another two and a half weeks, per doctor’s orders, she’s certainly not allowed to do it with a sailor.

We had a really good time tonight, going out on the town.  We really should do it more often.  And yes, I mean going out on the town.

We went on home and watched some TV.  While we were doing that we heard some loud noises, which I figured were fireworks.  Adam had called earlier and said that they were doing fireworks downtown for the submarine and that he and his fiancee Renee Sikes were going to it and asked if we wanted to go.  We’d have had to hang around downtown for a few more hours and Amanda was getting exhausted anyway, so we declined.

All in all it was a really nice fourth anniversary celebration.

Zachh Dotsey