Some things I've been enjoying lately.

A great column on Jesus and the iPhone.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/columnists/franklinharris/070913.shtml

Every Breath Bernanke Takes. I'm a Bernanke fan, but I just love this video!



Listening to my Coldplay cd (thanks Rachel!) in my car. Y'all know what that’s means :)

Wrapping soap and working at the Farmer’s market.

Doing this quiet time everyday. Except I like to refer to it as 90 days with the one of many because if I’m honest with myself, Jesus is just one of the many things that has my heart right now. But that's why I'm spending more time with him :)

Dancing.

Last night my pilates teacher told me I looked like a dancer so you may just find me auditioning for the next season of SYTYCD. If I'm not too old.

Jamaica me happy :)

If you are wondering where I have been lately, I've been on vacation. Imagine that! I just got back from a super fun trip to Jamaica with Paige, Liz and Katy. We took this trip to celebrate Paige's 30th birthday and I of course enjoyed seeing all mi bredren (as they say in Patois) in JA.

But each year that I go back, it's always sad to see how much the kids have grown up! Sweet little Barrington is still completly sweet but he is no longer little! He just turned 12 last Wed. but he's already a good 8 inches taller than me. I can hardly stand to watch him grow up! Thankfully he is still a little boy on the inside. He is one of the nicest and most polite kids I have ever met! When I told him I didn't bring him a gift this year he said "Yes, you did! You came to see me on my birthday and I appreciate that very much!"

We took he and his friend out to dinner and they had a blast! When Paige offered Romain a taste of her pasta, he took a bite, and then proceeded to eat from her bowl for the rest of the evening. He and Barrington hardly ate their pizza, but they certainly enjoyed all of our meals. Too funny!

Other than hanging out with the kids, we spent lots of time relaxing on the beach, went horseback riding and went to YS Falls. Here are some pics of all the fun!

At the falls

At Barry's

With Barrington at his birthday dinner

Romain, Barrington and Paige at dinner

Katy, Barrington, Romain and Liz

Me and Paige with Peter (aka Cash Money) on our way to the caves

Cash Money in a cave. I love this pic :)

The ladies at Rick's Cafe

Paige on horseback with our guide Patrick

Oshane and Patrick

And the pic you've all been waiting for... Shabba with his new teeth! I made him run home and put on the same shirt I'd taken the toothless pic in. It's a little faded but he still has it!

Quote of the week:

"Liza is singing in my mouth."

-Kandi's way of telling me she enjoyed the ham and cheese omelet.

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!"

This is my first tag. Yay!!

Rachel tagged me to write seven random facts about myself so here they are:

1. I have been to 25 states this summer. 6 of them I had never visited before. I have 4 states left to see in the next 1.5 years to achieve my “50 by 30” goal.

2. My hair has not been its natural color since I started using Sun-In the summer after 8th grade.

3. I have never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (inspired by #1 in Ebony’s “7 random facts” list.

4. I often drive in circles around the neighborhood on my way home from somewhere because I love listening to my tunes in the car more than I care about wasting a little bit of gas.

5. I like to do forward rolls up the stairs. Danica reminded me of this last week. It really works the abs.

6. I often want to tell characters in t.v. shows or movies about Jesus. For example, when Lois tells Superman that she doesn't need a savior, I'm thinking "Yes, you do Lois! And Jesus loves you and wants to save you!!"

7. I’ve spent a good part of today watching the “Murder She Wrote” marathon on the Hallmark channel. Love it!

I tag Paige and Dawn and Christine!

Confessions of Me, a Wannabe Pioneer Woman.

On our trip out west this week, Liz, Traci and I stayed at a ranch in Montana. No – we did not get to stay with the Pioneer Woman and join in the cow pregnancy testing fun, but we did stay with some very nice ranchers in Eastern Montana named Willy and Anne. That’s right! When I called and found out Mrs. Rancher’s first name was Anne with an “e” I knew we’d hit the jackpot.

We flew into Denver, picked up our lovely white rental car (laugh all you want, Brian) and headed north toward Montana. As is typical with the Anne/Liz road trip, we got caught in several torrential downpours and a couple of hail storms. But we forged our way through the road kill splattered, partially paved roads of Wyoming to cross into Montana and arrive at the ranch a little after 9pm.

I was relieved when Mrs. Rancher told us she would have breakfast ready at 7:30. That meant I could easily get 8 hours of sleep which we were all in desperate need of since we'd gotten up at 4:30 eastern time that morning to get to the airport. So it was off to bed for a great night's sleep under the big Montana sky.

Fast forward to 4:37 am the next morning. Cockadoodle-doo!! Actually it was more of a Ca-cock-a-doo! I remember thinking "Wow, it's still really dark outside! I thought the rooster crowed when the sun came up." Little did I know that the rooster comes with a snooze button. The Pioneer Woman never mentioned that one. He crowed every few minutes for the next hour and a half. What's up with that rooster???

I considered my options and thought about throwing shoes at him out the window, or looking for a baseball bat, but I decided my best option was to pray. I prayed that that rooster would be content with number of times he had already crowed to the Lord that morning, and I asked the Lord to reveal to him that we had come from a different time zone and his crows were confusing us more than helping us, and maybe he could find it in his little rooster heart to allow us to get another hour of sleep. And I kid you not – a few minutes after those prayers were lifted up to heaven I truly believed that rooster (it was later that we found out there were multiple roosters) had cockadoodle-doo’d his last. I was literally thanking Jesus like nobody's business every minute that went by without a crow. But it turns out he decided to take a 7 minute break instead of 3. And he was with us the rest of the morning until the sun finally came up.

There is one positive thing that came out of my morning hours with the rooster. This scene (which is one of my favorites from Arrested Development) kept running through my head:





Lindsay's chicken is the best!


Other than the rooster, the time at the ranch was great! Here are some of my favorite pics:

The tractor pic (taken for my Dad):


The cabin (right next to the hen house, of course):



Our cow friends:

My favorite cow pic (she doesn't come close to the Pioneer Woman's Ursula, but I still love her):

The Report from Jamaica.

"Limb fell off the ackee tree and ran out of beer." I guess that means everyone is ok. Oh and Shabba got his tooth fixed. Here's the before pic. After my trip with the girls in October, I'll post the after pic with new tooth.

Double the Reunion, Double the Fun!

This weekend I went down to NN for the Wiatt family reunion. This year was interesting because my uncle found some link 8 generations back to the Wyatt's with a "Y" and so they were invited for the first time! I kept seeing all these "Wyatt" name tags and was wondering what the heck was going on until Uncle Alex gave his 10 minute speech on the wonders of DNA and everybody's related to everybody and now we're inviting Wyatt's and blah blah blah. He likes to talk:)

The younger generation:

I did enjoy this picture very much. It's my uncle Tom as a young lad in 1971 next to a picture of Sir Thomas Wyatt as a young lad in 15??. Quite the resemblance. Actually, Sir Thomas ended up with his head hanging from the Tower of London soon after this portrait was made. Tom the uncle is still with us. And of course, I must highlight the moment that I wait for all year. The sing-a-long with Roberta on the concertina. This is when most of the cousins like to leave which is terribly unfortunate because what's a family reunion without a couple of rounds of Oh! Susanna and Home on the Range?

Anyway, that's enough of the crazy Wiatt clan. The surprise of the weekend was the mini reunion we had on my Dad's side. Turns out my cousin Jason and his lovely wife Melanie were taking a little road trip through VA to see my grandmother and visit the farm. And on Sunday they ventured down to NN. This was quite an exciting moment for me because I had not seen my cousin since 1991! 16 years! I didn't think I'd been alive for 16 years, but I can't argue with my parents or my birth certificate on that one so here we are.

This was such a fun weekend!! It was one of those rare (but becoming more frequent) moments when I actually wished I could spend more time with my family! I guess when you pray about something God is bound to change your heart eventually :)

Eyes, eyes, nostrils, silent scream.

If anyone is curious to know what I’ll be doing tonight, I’ll be at home (actually at Cecily’s – I’m dog sitting this week) watching this clip over and over until I learn the moves:



Who would have thought that one day of cake making with Rachel and Gina would change my life forever?

God Bless you both.

I'm melting.

God's greatest gift to man: J.C.

God's second greatest gift: AC.