Amanda and I got up and went to Port City Community Church this morning, both of us wearing Grow Zone shirts. (Mike was a little snug on me, but I think not in a bad way.) The music was good- Matt Blair returned (or did a guest spot, I don’t know) to the band and sang along with Dwayne. Mike Ashcraft’s message was a really good one and made me think about what I do as a husband. There was a little girl in the row in front of us and she was singing one song very earnestly to her grandmother, which I thought was about the most precious thing I’d ever seen.
After the service we ran into Barry Frazelle, Amanda’s uncle, who was talking to Theo Milojevich and Rich Biagini (who both played in the band today). he was talking about how good the surf would be today and mentioned maybe going over to Figure Eight Island again today.
Amanda and I then headed over to the Grow Zone area. She was helping tally the kids again, but I got to actually play with some this week as opposed to watching a door. I had a blast with the three year olds! The first one dropped off was a little Asian girl named Caroline. She was shy at first but we started playing with Play Doh and she warmed up quick. next was a kid names Mason, and I got him playing with some blocks. The blocks were all made of a soft, foamy material, so later on when I had five or six of them throwing them into the bucket they came from or trying to get the up on a shelf, nobody got hurt from flying blocks.
There was Anna, who is the daughter of Brett Eddy who direct Ripple Effect and was out at Capt’n Bill’s yesterday, and Hannah and Ella Rose and Braylon and Joshua and Hayden and a bunch of other kids. They played then they ate then they were read a story and played with instruments while music played (and by some miracle nobody got hurt with them all banging sticks together). Then a lady came in and sang with them. After that they made little streamers with paper plates and paper and it was time to go. I had a blast.
I think it was good for the boys to have a guy in the room- they took to me particularly fast, though Joshua of them told me his brother was stronger than me.
After all that we ate spaghetti in the Grow Zone green room then went home to let the dogs out for a bit before heading to Wrightsville Beach. We hung out at the Frazelles’ for a few minutes then Barry and I went out to surf while Amanda and Anna went for a walk. Walking out, we ran into Josh, a friend of Theo’s who usually joins us in surfing on Wednesday nights. He recently got married and we met his wife. He’d gone out surfing yesterday and was too sore to go today, so he and his lovely bride were just enjoying the beach.
The waves were great, but it was ridiculously crowded, so after a few minutes Barry suggested we go to Figure Eight. As I was going out I saw Lars Boscaljon getting in. We talked for a few minutes wherein I expressed that Amanda and I were a little upset about them not calling on Friday night to let us know they weren’t coming. It mainly upset us because we heard of something else some people were invited to and thought they might have gone to that. They didn’t though, and the air was cleared.
We loaded the surf boards onto the Lars Rover and Barry drove us over to Figure Eight Island. He’s friends with Hugh McRae (whose grandfather or great-grandfather donated the land for the park of the same name) so we got to park at his place. This was the first time Lars or I had been there. In fact, Lars commented that it was only the second place he had ever surfed, which made me think about my surfing history.
For the record, in chronological order, I’ve surfed at Topsail Island, Wrightsville Beach, Masonboro Island and now Figure Eight Island. That’s one more place than Michael, due entirely to the fact that I went to Mase one day.
Anyway, we had to swim out pretty far, but the waves were indeed fun. They were big and powerful, but they were mostly rolling and they went on for a long way with pretty decent space between them. We all caught some good ones, although my best one was my very first one. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to run into Mike Krzyzewski though.
We stayed out there for a while then eventually went on back to Wrightsville Beach. Lars took off, Barry was told Hannah, his daughter, was out on the beach lamenting the fact that her dad wasn’t there to surf with, so he went back out there for his third session of the day. (He’d gone to Figure Eight earlier in the day too.) the poor guy was pooped, but he wanted to please his girl. I hung out with Amanda and Anna on the porch for a few minutes before Amanda and I took off.
We stopped at Lowe’s Food to get some lunch meat (I felt the need to eat some meat) then went home, ate and watched TV. I dozed off a bit during Saturday Night Live, which actually isn’t a commentary on the program but on how tired I was. I was pretty sore when I got off the couch, which a day of volleyball followed by a day of surfing can do to you I guess. Amanda went to bed and I watched Deadwood and Entourage.
The work week begins again tomorrow. We have a lot going on the next couple weeks.
Zach Dotsey