I went over to Seth’s to watch Duke and Purdue battle it out in the Sweet 16 tonight.  Duke is undefeated in games that I’ve watched at his place, so I think this tradition will continue at least until Duke’s season is over, which will hopefully be after a win three games from now.

Duke and Purdue were the two highest rated defenses left in the tournament and the first half was a low-scoring affair with Duke managing to take the lead at the end of it at 24-23.  Duke finally started taking care of their turnovers and changed the offense up by attacking the basket more and, very importantly, this lead to Jon Scheyer’s return.  He’d been in a shooting slump thus far in the tournament but he started scoring again and Duke won 70-57.

In other news today, Karen, Amanda’s mom, came to visit.  Amanda made meatballs and rice with green beans for dinner for us, Karen and her brother, Michael, who also came by.  His girlfriend, Jenn, had a headache.  Anyway, Karen came to see Milly while Phil, Amanda’s dad, is heading out to do some fishing tomorrow.

One thing Milly and I have been doing a lot lately is to go sit on the porch swing.  She likes being outside and she really seems to enjoy being on the swing.  For the most part she stands in my lap, facing me, but sometimes she wants to look out and sometimes she wants to stand to the side holding the chain.

She’s been doing a few new things lately, too.  Well, one of them isn’t new but she’s doing it more, and that is to put her forehead against mine and hold it there.  That’s about as close to being snuggly as she usually gets.  The other thing is that she’ll stick out her lower lip.  It’s not a pout or a frown, she just seems to like sticking it out.  She’s also been obsessed with my teeth lately.  Sometimes when I’m holding her she wants to do nothing but stick her hand in my mouth and try picking at my teeth.  Oh, and she’s reading.  Not really reading, of course, but she’ll pick up a book and flip through it while making noises.  Very cute.

Amanda and I thought about going out to the beach late this afternoon, but it got overcast and a little colder (thought not really cold).  It got really windy too, so I don’t think we’d have had a good time out there.

That’s about it.  Looking forward to watching Duke play Baylor on Sunday, although I’m a bit wary of it since it’s practically a home game for Baylor.  Early in the season most people predicted that this Duke team was maybe a Sweet 16 contender.  They beat that, not to mention a hump they’ve not been able to get over in a few years.  I still think they could go all the way (playing like they did in the second half of tonight’s game) or they could lose their next one (playing like they did the first half).  Either way, I’m really happy with how this Duke team.  (But I’ll be happier if they just go ahead and win the next three games.)

Zach Dotsey