Oooh Nothing....Just Crashed a Wedding...

A few weeks ago the Whitten women got together to celebrate my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. I have to credit Ali (Kevin's wife) who got the whole thing rolling, and to express how much we missed having Kristen (Adam's wife) with us. It wasn't the same without her and she absolutely HAS to work it out to come with the next time.

Rob's sister, Leslie, arranged for us to stay in their Aunt Susan's beach house in Morehead City, on Atlantic Beach. It was a beautiful place two blocks from the water and Susan couldn't have been more generous to share it all with us. The house was meticulous when we arrived...not a thing out of place and with no children around, it stayed that way all day. After taking a nice walk on the beach with Leslie, we got ready for dinner and decided on a fish restaurant called "Sanitary". It is hard to describe how funny this place was....(the name, to start with..) It was a Friday night, hardly anyone else was there...the lights were so bright and there was absolutely no music or other noises in the background so we really stood out. This didn't stop us as we all laughed and talked so much that night that Leslie lost her voice. Anyway, we got our first fill of fried seafood and came back to the house. We were putting our leftovers in the fridge and setting down our purses when Ali turned from the kitchen sink and asked me to call 911.

Me - "911?!" "Why do you want me to dial 911?!" (We were not taking each other seriously at all at this point).

Ali - "Because someone has been in the house...someone was in here while we were gone. When we left there was nothing in this sink (she had washed her hands there right before we left) and now there is a bag of garbage sitting here. Dial 911 and let's see if there was a break in."

Ali and Leslie grabbed knives (!) and as we walked through the house, we found one of the bedroom doors to the front porch that we had not touched, unlocked. That was it...we locked ourselves in one of the bedrooms and I called 911. Barney Fife answered the local 911 call...I gave them what I thought was the correct address and we waited.....

20 minutes later, no police, no phone call, etc...so I called 911 again. Barney answered, "Yeah, we went to 110 Longpoint but you weren't there." "I know", I said. "I was nervous and was off with the address by two numbers. Could you please come to 108 Longpoint? Someone was in our house while we were gone and we are afraid they are still here!" "Okay, we'll come on out." (K, when you got to 110 and we weren't there, why not check other houses on the street JUST IN CASE we were there with a rapist or robber in our house?!) Three Atlantic City Beach police officers finally came, non-chalantly checked out the rest of the house and left. No finger printing...they didn't even look at the door we thought was used for the break-in. It was insulting. We ended up sleeping together that night...with the door locked!

The next day we slept in and headed to the beach for some sun. It was still a little chilly, but it felt good to be there. That night we opted to try a new restaurant Aunt Susan recommended called Amos Mosquitos and it was FANTASTIC. (We actually went back the next night to eat before we left for home) After dinner, Pam suggested we drive to a little nearby town called Beaufort and stroll along the harbor. We did and before we got back in the car, we heard a band playing some great music down the street. We drove to check it out and thought maybe we could dance outside the tent and no one would care or notice. The band started playing "Carolina Girls" and Pam and Leslie decided they were going in....

Ali and I wanted to do it but chickened out at first.... Go to a wedding you weren't invited to?! What if you got caught? What if people stared at you or worse, tried to talk to you and figured out you weren't invited?! I don't know why, (like it would make us look LESS suspicious) but we slid down in our seats and peeked above the dashboard to watch what they were doing. We watched them stroll up to the tent ("Carolina Girls....the best in the world......"), SIGN THE GUEST BOOK, GRAB A PLATE OF FOOD, and then walk through the guests to the dance floor where they started rockin' out. We were dying! Then we see the videographer... Yep, you guessed it...Pam and Leslie FRONT AND CENTER ON THE COUPLE'S WEDDING VIDEO. Then, Leslie started walking over towards the car with a plate of fresh oysters. (OK, dying again... Are you kidding me?....tent on the water, 10-piece band and fresh oysters?) Leslie grabbed her little Zipp video camera and headed back to the tent. The band then started playing the old 60's song, "Sherry Baby" and I could NOT stop myself. I was going in....and I begged Ali to come with me. I have to add here that Ali may currently be living in Colorado, but she is a true-blue, raised in NC, total southern girl . Being seen wearing jeans to a wedding went against everything she knew to be true...It was a difficult dilemma for her.

The videos you are about to see pretty much sum up what happened next. My mother-in-law is the one dancing in the beginning of the video, my sister-in-law Leslie (Rob's sister) is the one wearing the hat and Ali (Rob's brother's wife) is the pretty, short-haired blonde. There is so much more that went on that evening (including ALL of us getting footage on Margaret and Larry's wedding video and getting caught and reprimanded by security) but this gives you the picture. My apologies to the bride and groom if anything we did took away from your special day. We were just four mormon ladies who had escaped our protected, tame, everyday lives and just wanted to dance to some great music. It was such a fun, enjoyable weekend....Thanks to Lew, Pam and Ali for so much laughter and love!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VUUo1sOo3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWTiBcGn-Y

Aunt Susan's beach house

Three Sistas....Ali, me and Lew


The Wedding Crashers.....Ali, me, Pam and Lew



Eating fried pickles at Amos Mosquitos


All of us at Amos Mosquitos

"You Need to Get Him Some Glasses...."

Last week I took Weston in to get a school/scout camp physical. I'll be honest....unless my kids are sick or the school requires immunizations, I don't take them to the doctor. I have failed to bring them in each year for their "Well-Visits". Why give up the copay and take them out of school? Or spend a perfectly good summer day with your healthy child sitting in a waiting room of sick ones. Anyway, so it's now been 6.5 years since Weston has had his eyes, ears and blood pressure checked and the school sort of threatened to suspend him if I didn't get him a physical.

We made a nice day of it...I picked him up just before lunch, we enjoyed a sandwich at Subway and then headed over to the UK Clinic...for his appointment. Now, the clinic attracts lots of interesting folks and as I was sitting there watching Weston get weighed, I was sure the nurse thought I was one of the good moms. Just two weeks earlier I had been there with Jett (for the very same reason) and he had passed the vision and hearing tests with flying colors. But as Weston began to read those little letters posted on the wall, it became very clear he could hardly see them. He only started to get them right once she had him read the line with just three big letters on it. At first I thought he misunderstood which line she had asked him to read....or that he had gotten nervous... but when he finished reading the "three-letter line" she looked at me from across the room and very slowly and articulately mouthed the words, "You - Need - To - Get - Him - Some - Glasses ! "

Seriously, who doesn't notice their 11.5 year old CAN'T SEE?! When did this happen? Why hadn't he said anything to us? Had his teachers noticed? Did he always have headaches? I felt so bad! According to their "test" at the clinic, Weston's vision was 20/50. I didn't waste any time...THE VERY next day I took him to get some glasses and we waited in the store until the lenses were ready to go in his new frames. Because of our insurance, we were only allowed to pick from a certain section of the store for his frames. Believe me when I tell you, this was not the section with the neat looking, cool type of frames. However, we did find some that Weston liked and looked very good on him and it was bittersweet to watch him "rediscover "things with his new glasses. Honestly, I still feel bad when I think about how long he went with his vision so bad. Oh, and just a side note, when the Optometrist checked Weston's vision, he was 20/30 and 20/40, not 20/50 as the clinic said. The nurse lady had him standing too far away from the letters....

Here is sweet Weston with his new "eyes"!