Amanda’s dad, Phil Mercer, my father-in-law, turned 60 today.  On a side note, his first and only grandchild turns one year old in exactly one month.  As such, we left the house a little after 10:00 and headed to the Lands (Richlands, that is), where I proceeded to work in the sun room of my in-laws’ house.

Karen, Amanda’s mom, was here for a while, but she and her friends were going to the beach tonight to celebrate the birthday of one of them who’d had a birthday last week.  Amanda went out while Milly was napping to get a few things for her dad, including a chocolate pie and Gran Torino.  Phil likes Clint Eastwood and I’ve wanted to see that movie for a while and I finally got to tonight.  As expected, it was a great movie.  It made me want to change the way I talk to friends of mine with ethnic last names.

Milly enjoyed her time in Richlands, mostly playing with a little fountain in the sun room.  She kept picking up pebbles from it and putting them in different places or just dropping them on the ground.  Of course, a lot of the time she was just sticking her hand in the water.  Maybe she’ll grow up to be a hydraulic engineer or something along those lines.  Or a diver.

She started doing something tonight that I’d never seen before.  She was holding something in one hand, but wanted to move somewhere else.  She didn’t want to put down what she was holding, though, so she would crawl like normal with one hand then use her elbow on the other arm.  It looked like she was limping, if you can imagine someone limping while crawling.  It was pretty funny.

Milly’s still a little snotty, but she seems to be doing fine otherwise.  Amanda is still a bit stuffy.

Zach Dotsey