We got to set the clocks back an hour today, which was nice.  I woke up a bit before I needed to and probably would have gone back to sleep, but the sound of various animals scratching themselves or gnawing on themselves was overwhelmingly irritating to me and I finally got up to feed them and let them out.

When I went to get Milly up she stayed asleep through my opening the door, which isn’t usually the case in the morning, then she yawned and stretched for a while and told me she was still sleepy.  I asked her if she wanted to sleep a few more minutes and she said yes, but then she got right up, walked into the bathroom where Amanda was taking a shower and cheerfully told her, “I’m sick!”

When we dropped Milly off at Grow Zone today Rosa was already in there.  When she saw Milly was coming in she got up from her table and waited for her, and when Milly went in they ran up to each other and hugged.  It was such an adorable thing to see.

We saved a total of ten or eleven seats at church today.  The list was me and Amanda, Anna, Barry, Paul, Hannah, Christian, Micah, Maddie and Carissa with the possible addition of Anna and Barry’s friend Tim.

After church Paul rode with us to Atlanta Bread, where we met up with Hannah and her friend Carissa.  The Hausers just happened to show up too, so Milly for even more time with Rosa.  We didn’t have enough space for everyone to all sit together, so Simon, Monique and Emil all sat at a table across the small aisle while Rosa sat next to Milly with us.  After we ate the Hausers took Milly with them to Barnes & Noble.  We joined them shortly after.

We took Paul back to Anna and Barry’s around noon, though the traffic was really backed up at the Wrightsville bridge.  The bridge was up, for one thing, but they’re also doing some work on it that only leaves two lanes open instead of the usual four.  That said, it took us a while to get over the bridge.

We only intended to stay for a little while, but we ended up staying until about 3:00.  We were just hanging out and talking.  I was feeling a bit lazy and didn’t care to move much anyway, so that suited me just fine.  When we did finally head home there was a bunch of traffic getting off the beach too.  There was some kind of event going on at the Wrightsville Beach Park, which is what we assume was the source of all the traffic.

We had a few tickets for the Cape Fear Fair, which was held this week.  Between Amanda and Milly being sick, we didn’t have a chance to go until today.  We gave Kirsten and Alec two tickets because they were going last night, but we still had a few spares.  Amanda wasn’t feeling up to it, so Jacob and Reece went with me and Milly.

They were both very excited.  Milly couldn’t stop talking about the Ferris Wheel, though Jacob only talked about the animals.  They both lit up when they saw the lights of the fair and I thought Milly was going to bust a gut.  She kept talking about how excited she was and how this was going to be “the most fun EVER!” and how she wanted to ride the “Paris” Wheel, which was the first thing we headed for after we got in.

Jacob, unfortunately, decided he wasn’t so keen on riding it after we stood in line for a couple minutes, so he and Reece ended up sitting that out.  After we got off of it, a young women who had been in line behind me and Milly and had chatted briefly with us came up to me and asked me if I thought the boy (Jacob) would be sad if she gave Milly something. I said I doubted it, so she gave Milly a stuffed sheep she or the guy she was with had won, which I thought was just so exceedingly sweet.  She asked Milly’s name and Milly asked hers.  It was Isabel, and I told her that had almost been Milly’s middle name.

Milly continued to go on rides and Jacob continued to not want to go on them.  We did all go down the giant slides together.  I told Reece there were rides for smaller kids on the other side and that if he wanted we could just meet them back over there, so we split up for a bit.  Milly rode pretty much everything she was big enough to ride including a crazy copter ride, teacups and a sort of obstacle course house.

When Milly and I went back over to the other side of the fair we saw Reece and Jacob on the first one, which was a bus that goes up and swings around in a circle.  It hadn’t started yet so we got in behind them.  After that we hit the carousel and all the other smaller kid rides.  Jacob had warmed up to rides by that point so we went back to the other side again and did the helicopter and the obstacle course thing again.  Milly was taking her time going up a net ladder so a bunch of bigger kids climbed all around her.  I was going to say something to them, but I figured it would give Milly a chance to deal with something.  I was right behind her in case anything happened anyway.

We were going to go see the animals, but then we passed a mirrored maze thing that Milly wanted to go in.  I’ll credit the kids with finding their way through, because it actually was a little tricky.  Jacob bumped right into a plexiglass wall at one point though.

Milly saw one more thing on the way out that she and I went into.  It was a small walkway inside a turning tunnel with lights in it.  It made the path look like it was rocking around; very disorienting.  It was the only time Milly was scared of anything, but I think it was because of the noise more than anything.

We then caught up with Reece and Jacob and looked at the animals, though a number had already been taken home, by the looks of it.  We left after that.  Since it was on the way and Milly needed a bath, I stopped by our house to drop her off before dropping off Reece and Jacob.

Milly had recently gotten out of the bath when I got home, so I read her Fairy book to her while Amanda brushed her hair.  Milly seems to have felt much better today, but she was starting to lose her voice.

Despite having loaded up on Airborne, I think I’m catching this cold that’s been going around the house.  My nostrils have the rawish, “all the air I breathe in is a little burning/cold feeling” feeling.  Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Amanda and I watched a little bit of Saturday Night Live then The Walking Dead.  They killed off two characters tonight.

SPOILER ALERT

One was T-Dogg, who wasn’t even in the comic and was never a very major character.  The other was Laurie, who is probably the least popular character on the show.  She sacrificed herself giving birth to her baby and Carl shot her after she died.  It was actually very touching, as was Rick’s reaction when he figured out what had happened.

Zach Dotsey