Amanda and her mom got up early this morning and left the house at 9:00 to go shopping in Raleigh.  Mainly, Amanda wanted to use some Pottery Barn Kids and Babies R Us coupons.  She only spent $6 and some change out of pocket and got a bunch of stuff, so she did a good job.  They had lunch with Aunt Joanne.

So what did I do?  Well, I got up at about 9:30, didn’t do too much for a while.  When I was in Costa Rica, Christian Quinn, well, Christian Galtieri as she is now named, posted something on my Facebook wall about sending a postcard, but since I didn’t see mailboxes, much less street signs, in Nosara, I have been meaning to make up a postcard for her.  I finally did that today.  After that I mowed the lawn then I waited for Michael to get off work and met him at Wrightsville to go surfing.

The surf wasn’t great today.  I thought the waves were supposed to be of some decent size to I took out Barry Terry Senate board, which is shorter than mine, in an attempt to do some more manuevering on the waves.  Well, I caught some, but like I said, it wasn’t great out.

After I got back home I decided to paint the nursery some.  I turned on some music downstairs and spent a couple hours coloring the walls until Amanda and Karen got back home.  They thought about going out to eat, but Amanda wasn’t feeling it much and it was getting late besides.  I took a break from the painting and put the Pack & Play together.

Karen, bless her, had an idea to finish the nursery tonight.  That didn’t happen, but it’s getting pretty close.

Oh yeah, I gave Amanda her birthday present.  She wanted a waterproof digital camera and we’d looked at the Fuji Z33, but in doing my research I decided that it wasn’t the best.  From what I read, the quality was only so-so and it doesn’t have any image stabilization.  I decided on the Panasonic TS1.  It was a bit more expensive, but it was also waterproof, takes good pictures, is very rugged and even takes decent HD video.  I can’t wait to try out the video part to see how it compares to our camcorder.  While I’ll be a little sad if it’s better than our camcorder (because it was a not-cheap wedding gift from my parents), I’ll also be happy because we’ll be able to take HD video when Milly when she’s born.  (Not of her birth, mind you.)

I was going to get Amanda the orange one because she wanted a fun color.  When I ordered it last week they said they’d be out of stock on those until Monday.  I called to check on Tuesday because I saw that it hadn’t shipped and the guy I talked to them said they were on backorder for two weeks.  I was a bit upset at this.  Anyway, not liking the drab green color, I ordered the silver one.  Amanda was a little disappointed not to get a fun color, but I wanted to actually give her something on her birthday.

I haven’t been able to test the video yet because to do that it requires an SDHC card, which is basically a suped-up SD card.  I found a great deal for them online and put in an order for it today.

Zach Dotsey