Amanda trimmed her hair a little bit last night and decided to go with the to-the-side-bangs that she does every now and then, which I thought was cute.  Then tonight, right before bed, she decided to try full frontal bangs.  It’s a completely new look for her and it’s also very cute.

Last night Stephanie said she’d text me and Reece about whether she needed help with the actual moving and unpacking of her stuff today.  I awoke to a text from Reece at about 7:30 and saw that Steph had texted us around 3:00 and said 8 or 9:00, which was the timeframe around which I said I’d be able to help.  Then she said 9:30, but I was guessing if she was saying 9:30 that meant we’d leave her place in Wilmington around 10:00 or later, wouldn’t get to Jacksonville until 11:30 or so, take two hours to unload (since it took two to load) then another hour and some change to get back to Wilmington, putting me back in Wilmington around 3:00.  I wasn’t too keen on this because Amanda’s parents were coming over sometime this afternoon and then we were all going over to the Frazelles’ for Kirsten’s 18th birthday.

A few texts back and forth and Stephanie said that since Reece was definitely helping, if I could great and if not she understood.  I thought that meant she had a little help lined up in Jacksonville, but that wasn’t the case so I didn’t want to leave Reece to unload all of Sam and Stephanie’s stuff with just Stephanie’s dad.

To tie up this long prologue, I eventually got Stephanie to agree to be ready to set out at 8:45.  Reece picked me up, we grabbed some BoJangles then headed over to Stephanie’s apartment.

They weren’t quite ready though.  Stephanie wanted to go ahead and fill up the truck with as much little stuff as possible, which is understandable, though we thought that would have been done already, then we needed to load Sam’s car, which doesn’t currently start, onto a trailer.  That was actually kind of fun because the brakes aren’t working quite right either, so I felt like Superman when I had to stop the car.

We left around 9:40, but it didn’t take as long to unload as we thought it would.  A lot easier going into a one-story house than coming out of a second-floor apartment I guess.  It was raining, but we were able to back the Uhaul up enough so that we were almost walking directly into the garage.  We were a little worried about the ramp getting slick, but nobody had any problems.  We had trouble getting a couple of the larger furniture into place, but I got home sometime between 1 and 1:30.

Amanda and I watched Community and Milly, who had been napping since before I got home, started knocking on her door almost as soon as it was over.  I went upstairs and said, “Who is it?”  She said, “What’s your name?”  I answered, “My name’s Daddy, what’s yours?”  And she said, “My name’s Milly Dotsey.”  The way she said it all was just too cute.

I took a shower and Amanda’s parents showed up shortly after that.  Milly was all about some Paw Paw.  We all went to Costco and grazed a bit.  Oh yeah, we bought some stuff too.

Andra called me while we were there to tell me that Addison had won Little Miss Miniature Gaston County or some such title at a pageant, so now she’s eligible for a state competition.  I had talked to my parents earlier in the day, and they had said something about that.  My mom had flown in to Charlotte and my dad went there to get her, so they got to spend a little time with Andra’s family and went to the pageant.  Erin was with them too, but she was asleep in the back of the car when I talked to them.

We stopped by Mayfaire so Amanda and Phil could grab a coffee and Karen could get a card for Kirsten at Hallmark.  Milly and I (and Phil, after Amanda went off to help speed her mother along) hung out near the nicely-styled drainage ditch.  Milly likes looking in there because she usually sees turtles and also tells us there are big sharks.

We spent the rest of the evening with the Frazelles.  Amanda’s grandparents were there as well, plus we finally met Kirsten’s boyfriend, Connor.  He seems like a nice kid.  Milly, the star of the evening as always, warmed up to him easily enough.

Milly was pretty entertaining.  She took Hannah to Kirsten’s bathroom and put makeup on her.  She was very serious about it, but the end result looked like Hannah had a bruised forehead.  She also dressed Kooky up in some of Hannah’s gaudier clothes.  During dinner, but after she’d eaten as much lasagna and bread as she wanted, Milly kept going in and out of Scout’s doggy door.

Also, Duke beat Tulane 48-27!

Zach Dotsey