Smile pretty for the camera if you were robbed this weekend!!

Someone took my iPod!



Someone took my Perfume!


Someone took my Cracker Barrel!

Oh do we have a story to tell! And I cannot stop cracking up about it! We were totally robbed this weekend! Well actually, the correct term is burglarized, but either way, it was crazy and surreal and for some reason just really, really funny and even fun! Definitely one of the most exciting nights I’ve had in a long time!

So here we go:

This weekend we went to beautiful, quaint Colonial Williamsburg for Jen and Albert’s wedding (yes – it happened!) But this post is not about the wedding. It is about the wonderful post-wedding excitement that Liz, Janelle and I experienced.

L, J and I returned to our hotel suite at the Four Points Sheraton after a long day of wedding festivities. We changed out of our dresses and all our fanciness, put on something comfy and decided to head over to the hotel restaurant for some food and drinks. In those few minutes we were back in our room, we all noticed that it was freezing!! The maid had turned the AC down to about 55. I turned it back up, but didn’t know if that would warm things up enough before we got back from dinner. So as we were leaving the room I said “Do y’all care if I open the window to let some warm air in?” and Liz (our favorite prophetess) said “You don’t think we’ll get robbed do you??” and I was like “Noooo…” thinking the parking lot was well lit and there were plenty of people around, so it would be pretty obvious if someone tried to crawl through our window. So I opened the window and off we went.

Now to give you a little background on the room situation - the suites were all located in separate buildings next to the main hotel. You needed a key card to get in the front door, and when you entered, there were two suites on the first floor (where we were) and two upstairs.

So we go off to dinner and we aren’t gone for more than an hour. As we’re walking out of the restaurant on our way back, we see a cop car up ahead but don’t think much about it. All weekend long we had seen cop cars everywhere, and Rachel even made a comment earlier about the Williamsburg cops not having much else to do but troll around the streets.

But I digress. So we saw cop car number 1. Then we turn the corner toward our room and see another cop car parked across from our building, but still we’re thinking no big deal. We go into our building through the main door and there’s a cop coming down the stairs and he says “Ladies – the room upstairs was robbed. Check your room to see if anything is missing.” Whoa! We go in our room and at first glance everything looks in place. My purse is sitting on the kitchen table and I look in and see my credit card still there and I’m thinking everything is ok because wouldn’t the burglar swipe the credit card?? And Liz’s purse is also in the same place and our clothes are hanging in the closet so for a brief moment we’re thinking “Whew, they didn’t come into our room!” Then one of the kids from upstairs yells down “Do any of you have a silver camera?” And I’m like “I have a silver Canon camera!!” (and yes – I know saying “I’m like…” is not correct grammar but that’s the way I talk and think so that’s the way I’m going to write :) ) And then she says “Do you have an iPod?” and I say “Yes! Black iPod Nano!” and she says “We have your stuff!” So I run upstairs and on the way up I hear Janelle yell out what may be considered the best line ever! You’ve already read it earlier in the post but here it is again… “Someone took my Cracker Barrel!!!” Yes, we had eaten at Cracker Barrel the night before and Janelle had leftovers in the fridge and they were stolen!! So we all make our way upstairs and as we come into the room we see the following things:

My iPod, camera, my favorite Williamsburg deck of cards that I got in like 1986, my green pilates t-shirt, my wear under your dress slimming thing, a pack of gum with one piece left, Liz’s slip, Liz’s perfume, Janelle’s Cracker Barrel leftovers, Janelle’s mascara (a.k.a. the #1 mascara and mascara to the stars) and the bottle of wine we brought back from Jen and Albert’s wedding.

So this is what happened. Sometime after we left our room, a maid or someone with an access card came into our room (it wasn’t the window after all!) and loaded the items listed above into a bag. I totally understand her taking the iPod, camera, wine and perfume but what really cracked me up the most was that of all nice BR, AT, and NW clothes hanging there in an open closet she chose to take a green pilates t-shirt. I must admit that when my pilates teacher surprised us with t-shirts last year, I wasn’t too fond of all the greenness (which is why I sleep in it), but I will now have to commend teacher on her choice because it is the very item that attracted the eye of Miss Burglar. So there you go.


So she loaded our stuff up and then went to the room next door (most likely) and took some very random things from their room then she proceeded upstairs to the room above us where the nice family from PA was staying. Well, when the family came home from their day at Busch Gardens, Miss Burglar was still in their room. She had dead bolted the door so when they tried to open it they couldn’t get in. So she says “I’m the maid, I’ll be out in a minute” and she drops the stuff and opens the door and gets away. The cops still had not found her by the time we left that night.

*** This may be the longest post ever but keep reading, it is worth it.***

So now begins the fun and good times in the PA family suite. First of all, the family was so nice and they offered us and the cops something to drink and it was almost like we were getting together with old friends to reminisce about fun times in Williamsburg. The cops were a riot too! Sergeant Female was organizing all of our things and asking what belonged to whom, and when she got to my iPod she asked what kind of music was on it, and I told her it was mostly contemporary Christian Jesus music mixed in with a little Liza Minnelli. You know I was happy to give the shout out to Jesus and to Liza! And really, I’ve always thought that if my iPod was stolen it would be a great thing because the thief would inevitably here the gospel after listening to a couple of songs, and after presenting someone with the gospel, the next best thing I can think of to offer is a medley of show tunes by the one and only Liza Minnelli.

We had some laughs over the stick of gum and the cracker barrel and the slip, and the kids were laughing about the random things she had chosen from their rooms and it turned into a really fun night of laughing a carrying on. And the cops didn’t mind at all. They totally played along with our silliness (but in a completely professional way, of course). We filled out our crime reports and Sergeant Female called in Detective 1699 to dust for prints. They decided to dust the wine and the perfume because dusting the electronics would ruin them. This is when I asked if it was ok to take pictures at the crime scene. The Sergeant said “sure” and that’s how we captured the loveliness pictured above.

Unfortunately, the thief/burglar/maid woman did make off with the PA Dad’s wedding ring and some prescription pills, but despite that, he remained in good spirits. And needless to say, we did not spend Sat. night in our suite. The hotel staff was very apologetic and kind and gave us two free rooms in the main hotel and free breakfast the next morning. I didn’t sleep as well as I had hoped that night. Not because I was nervous or freaked out, but because I kept busting out into laughter every time I would tried to relax and fall asleep. It just really was too funny that we were robbed! Of all things! And Liz totally called it when we left the room. Too funny! I think God knows that I like to maintain a certain level of excitement in my life and he has always been faithful to provide it! And even the sermon the next morning at Sovereign Grace in Chesapeake struck a chord that made me laugh a little and give God some glory. The church is doing a series on the minor prophets and on Sunday Brett was teaching from Habakkuk and quoted verse 3:18:

“yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

As I was trying to fall asleep on Sat night I was thanking God that everyone was safe (especially the PA fam since they walked in on her) and praying for the thief woman and just praising God that everyone had such a joyful attitude about the whole situation. And it struck me that we all had so much fun and found so much joy in the situation because we know where our hope lies and we know it’s not in our circumstances or in material things, but it is in our Savior and we can totally rejoice in that!! He’s awesome!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Travis was the victim of an attempted robbery, although on a much smaller scale. I love this picture :) "Give me that tie, man!"