Amanda and I got up to go to church this morning, but it was a little different. I went downstairs to get my five year old nephew, Jackson, up. Andra had said he likes going to church and he wanted to go with us.
He was completely out of it though. He and Addie were on a blow up mattress in the office, so I was trying to wake him up as quietly as I could so as to not wake up his sister. After calling his name and shaking him a bit, I finally picked him up and carried him into the kitchen. He didn’t wake up until I sat him down in a chair. I asked him if he still wanted to go to church, which he did, so we both ate a bowl of cereal then he got dressed.
Once all that was done, Jackson came upstairs with me. I took a shower and Amanda took Jackson to get Milly up. She was apparently delighted to see him.
Once we got to church we waited in line at Grow Zone, as we always do. Amanda took Jackson to look at the room for Treasure Island, which is the place for kids from Kindergarten through fifth grade. There wasn’t anyone in there yet, so he came back to think about whether he wanted to go there or to big church with me and Amanda. Amanda realized that a girl in line behind us was probably a Treasure Island kid and asked her dad. She talked to them for a minute about it, but she was really shy about it. After that, Jackson asked me if it would hurt my feelings if he went to “his class.” I said that of course it wouldn’t and that I thought he’d really enjoy it.
Turns out that he did.
After church we all went to Atlanta Bread, where we met up with Erin, Andra, Josh, Addison and Britt. Since Milly was asleep when Andra’s crew got in last night, Andra was really excited to see her niece. Addison and Milly were in high chairs next to each other and Erin got them to give each other high fives. I got video of it, but Jackson accidentally deleted it when I let him play with my iPhone.
Everyone headed to our house after that. Milly took a nap and we had intentions of all going out to the beach, but Josh (and, to some degree, Erin) wanted to watch the Panthers. The Bears were murdering them. Seriously, it reminded me of the Duke-Alabama game. It was 17-3 in the first quarter and the Panthers never scored a touchdown (28-6). We left the house at halftime, but Erin and Britt went ahead and took off to head back home.
We stopped first at The Fuzzy Peach before heading to the beach. When my dad was here last week, he bought a gift certificate for $25 for us to use this week. The total came to $25.93. Of course, Jackson’s eyes were bigger than his stomach and he loaded up not only on the frozen yogurt, but on toppings as well. We enjoyed it there.
Afterwards we went to the beach. Paul and Peyton Ayers were there. Kim was at a wedding and Paul had called earlier to see if we wanted to get together. I told him we were planning on going out there, but had no idea when we’d be there.
Nobody brought a bathing suit, but most of us did end up wading in the water some. It was cold at first, but it was nice after you got used to it. Jackson got pretty wet.
We had a very nice dinner of burgers, salad and macaroni and cheese. The cousins all played out in the backyard while Josh grilled the burgers and Amanda did the rest. After we ate Amanda and Andra bathed the kids while Josh and I cleaned up. Once the kids were in bed we talked about playing a game, but we ended up watching last week’s Saturday Night Live and, for no real reason, the last half hour or more of the original Clash of the Titans.
Zach Dotsey