We <3 Free Airport Internet

So we have a little lull before our flight back to B-more and Matt decided to turn on my Mac just to see if we could get internet access.  Sweet...Ft. Lauderdale loves it's customer's, unlike BWI who wanted to charge us for internet access (dorks).

We just wanted to give you all a little update on the Fohner-Bateman vacas.  Here are some pics of us having some fun with the iPhoto on the plane to FL.

The cruise was absolutely wonderful!  Let's just say that there is nothing like visiting the beauty of the Carribean to see first-hand the beauty that God has made with His creation down there.  So many fun experiences and times of laughing until I almost threw up, although I can't wait to see my mom and actually get some contact with estrogen.  Straight testosterone for 5 full days has it's downfalls.

Biggest reason I miss home now...two of our best friends gave birth to their third child and first son on Tuesday.  Jett (Jacob Allen Whicker II) arrived at 4:54 AM at a nice 7 lbs. 1 oz.  We totally thought Beth was gonna go on the Friday before we left and actually spent the night at their house to watch their 3-year-old and 18-month-old girls.  They sent Jake & Beth home the next day  :(  Man, I can't WAIT to meet him when we get home!

You'll hear more from me next weekend, but until then I'm looking forward to some more sun & sand in Bethany  :)

Peace...

We <3 Summer Vacation

So you'll be seeing lots of pics like this in a few weeks because the Fohn Fam is headed off to enjoy the sun & surf over the next 2 weeks with the Bateman Clan :)

We left Fred-neck yesterday morning to head to Pete's (Matt's Dad's) house in Davidsonville to have a Mini-Fohner Family Reunion. The real Ward-Fohner Reunion is August 8th-10th in O.C., but Matt's youngest of his older sister is pregnant with her and her husband's fourth child and isn't allowed to travel far from home from now on. So Pete wanted to have all of his kids, their spouses, and grandkids over, since the Sifford's can't come to the reunion. So the eighteen of us all enjoyed a nice cook out while being constantly soaked by water balloons and squirt guns from the nephews and nieces. We all don't get together but a few times a year since they're so many of us, so it was really nice to spend time with everyone.

We're having a nice, relaxing afternoon at my mom's house then we're heading off to the Mallare's to have a chill dinner, hang out with J & Di, and play with little Lily. Tomorrow morning my Dad's flying us down to Ft. Lauderdale with my little bro's and treating us all to a cruise :) We'll stop in Key West and Cozumel, which we're really excited about because Key West was one of our stops on our Honeymoon and we've never been to Mexico, so we're psyched.

When we get back on Friday we're headed straight to Bethany for a week with my Mom...wooo-who! This time of year is when we absolutely LOVE being teachers. God's really blessed us with the ability to be able to enjoy the first few years of married life with summer's off...time to spend with each other working camps at the beach, going on vacations, and just relaxing together.

So here's to a great, safe, wonderful time on a much needed vacation...see you all in a few weeks!

P.S. This is a pic of my mom and I in the OBX on the 4th. Yeah, I got a haircut...I promise I'll put more pics of it when I get back, but it's so nice having short hair. I definitely feel more sophisticated :)

Another Wagner Girl :)

Last night @ around 10:30 while hanging out with Ashley, Cassie, & Lainey I get the following text message from Dave...

"At 10:08, 20" and 7lb 12 oz Hope Ann Wagner entered the world.  She is beautiful with a full head of hair.  Praise God!"

Wooo-who!  So excited for you, Dave, Nicki, and Ella!  I can't wait to meet her  :)

P.S.  The pic above is from Nicki's Baby Shower that wasn't even 1 week ago!  I feel so blessed to still have these awesome girls in my life 11 years after we all met during our freshman year of high school  :)

Well, actually...I've known Shannon (in the middle) for almost 20 years and Di (2nd from the right) is the most recent BF of the group since I've only known her for about 10 years, but still...how many people can say they're still close with their best friends from grade school when they're in their mid-20's?  Love you girls (& miss you, Jax)!

A Movie Showing Just for the Fohn Fam (& a Stalker j/k...read on)

So while checking my phone after Vacation Bible School tonight I get a text from Matthew asking me when I'd be home and that I had a surprise at 9:30.  Wooo-who!  I was psyched...he's pretty good with surprises.

So I quickly say good-bye to everyone and hop in the car.  I come home to a just showered, cologne wearing (LOVE that Ralph Lauren Romance :) husband ready to whisk me off to see "Wall-E".  Sweet deal...we love Pixar Movies.  So the movie theater isn't too packed and when we walk into our specific theater, no one is there yet.  Then I remember it's a Sunday night and we're about 10 minutes early (c'mon, we're early every once in a while).  As the minutes pass, still no one comes in we remind ourselves that it is a kid's movie and most kids have been in bed for hours now.

So the previews start and we're thinking, how cool...are we really going to have the WHOLE theater to ourselves?!  Well, one guy walks in about one preview in, looks around and proceeds to walk a couple of rows behind us and sit.  At this point I'm thinking, oh man...this isn't as special and where is this joker sitting?  As soon as the word "joker" pops in my head I start thinking about the "Batman" preview from the previous night that Rachel, her friend Emily, and I watched and I start getting a little freaked.  All the sudden, I'm hoping no scary previews come on so I can get the image of Heath Leger doing an awesome job playing that psycho joker (who happens to be holding a knife in almost every scene) out of my head.  Wait, a knife...where did that weirdo who came to the movie by himself go?  Has this ever happened before..."young couple stabbed to death in late-night theater showing of 'Wall-E'...the headlines run through my head.  Thankfully some more previews distract me enough to prevent me from turning around and trying to find out where this guy is sitting.  After all, it's going to be completely obvious if I turn around, although the more I think about it, the more I want to do it.  Can I get away with acting like I'm digging in my purse beside me and then nonchalantly just turn enough to the side and peek?  Before these thought completely consume me, I see a flashing light of a cell phone and the guy descending the stairs out of the theater...whew!

Thew and I look at each other and simultaneously say "weirdo" and nervously snicker, a bit relieved that we're now the only ones in the theater.

So the ENTIRE rest of the movie, no one even walked in!  How cool!  I felt like a movie star whose husband rented out the entire theater so we wouldn't be bothered while we enjoyed ourselves.  We propped out feet up on the seats, leaned back, and snuggled a bit, relishing in our pseudo wealthy feeling of having the means to rent out our own theater.  So fun  :)  Second time in a little over a week that God has let me enjoy something with almost complete isolation (see last Monday's first blog post), only this time it was with my favorite person  :)  And on top of that, a really cute movie...it will definitely be sitting on our movie shelf when it comes out on DVD.  Although, I do have to say I did have to snap myself back to reality quite a lot while watching this.  I kept thinking that it was ridiculous to think a computer-generated robot has feelings and here I am constantly leaning over to Thew saying, "how cute!" when Wall-E talks or droops his eyes or shivers.  Ridunculous, right?  All well, it was cute!  And the PE Teachers in us loved how all the people in the movie are morbidly obese and detached because in the Pixar-minded future, we'll have the technology to have hover machines that do our traveling for us, so much so that we have to learn how to walk again...a really good wake up call to our un-healthy nation.

That's all for now, signing off with champagne somethings and caviar dreams (or whatever Robin Leach used to say at the end of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"...gotta love the 80's (do you think this theater experience got to my head...hehe  :)

Happy Anniversary, Barnette Family!

End of day shout out to our bestest friends, Kyle & Ashley Barnette, to say HAPPY 1ST ANNIVERSARY!!!

This time last year we were finishing dancing, saying goodnight, and reminiscing on the awesome memories of the time leading up to the wedding of mine best friend to Matt's best friend.

I believe around this time of the night last year, Erica and I were desperately trying to nonchalantly go through their wedding gifts to find the sheets that they registered for that we knew someone got for them but that they needed that night since they were going back to the house they had just bought.  We wanted to make sure that their first night together was just perfect and you obviously need sheets on a bed for that to happen, so here are the Bridesmaid and Brides Matron frantically searching through gifts that are not ours trying to find what would look like a set of sheets while the Maid of Honor distracts the guests so that they don't notice.  Ummm, a little awkward.  I'm pretty sure that Matt and Ben were doing their worm dance in their tuxes around this time, too, so I'm pretty sure no one noticed.

Anyway, who cares if anyone did notice...we found the sheets, they had an awesome first night, and Ash I and were free to gossip and giggle about it in the back seat of mine & Matt's car as we drove them to the airport at 5:30 the next morning.

So Happy 1st Anniversary, guys (even though I know you almost never read this thing).  We wanted to let you know we were thinking about you today and praying for you that God continues to bless your union!  Some of the best and favorite moments of mine & Matt's life together have been spent with you all.  We love you!!!

P.S.  Kyle & Ash, thought you would both appreciate the pic with "Stevie Brue-na" in the background from the annual Valentine's Day Dinner...he almost looks as if he just chopped a quart of wood in an hour  ;)

The OBX & a Sunrise Just for Me :)

So I'm back after over 17 hours on the road (combined from the trip down and up...ugh).  Totally worth it though!  I'm currently waiting for a totally cute pic of my mom and I to be e-mailed to me so I can upload it to the blog here.

It was such a blessing to be able to spend some time with my mom and her future fam.  We had such a great time hanging out.

I also got to enjoy some much needed "me time".  There are few things more peaceful than waking up to the sunrise on the beach with absolutely NO ONE around for 45 minutes.  I'm not kidding either...I woke up Saturday morning at 5:30 and walked out to the beach to watch the sunrise and I didn't see a soul for over 45 minutes!  I had the entire beach to myself the whole time!  It was so beautiful just being able to feel the sand between my toes, watch the waves slowly roll into the shore, and see the sun peek up through the clouds.  I can't remember where the verse is, but God's Word speaks of how he makes certain things on earth just to make us smile...and that sunrise was just for me on Saturday  :)  I brought my Bible and journal out just in case, but I couldn't take my eyes away from His beauty and thought that He just wanted me to enjoy His creation for a bit instead.  I took a 30 minutes walk out to the ship wreak and back and still didn't see ANYONE!  As I got back ready to walk back up to the beach house, I finally saw a jogger and a guy on an ATV, but I still choose to think that God made that sunrise just for me that day  :)

Also, after Matt and I spent some much needed time together here at the house tonight, I turn on the computer to catch up on e-mail and such and find that I got mentioned on one of my favorite blog sites (scroll down to the "Sunday Flashback" Post).  And while you're at it, check his son's blog (AMAZING story)!

What a cool weekend!

Now for an awesome dinner out with my favorite of God's creations...my handsome hubby  :)

Stuff Christians Like and Things That Slightly Perturb Them

Okay, so while doing my almost daily blog stalking I come across a mention of another blog, Stuff Christians Like (think any other "Stuff [insert certain group stereotype name] Like" blog) on a pastor's blog.

Of course, I click the link (just like you all probably already have before even reading the rest of my post...how rude of you!  j/k) and start to go into one of those talking giggles while skimming the posts trying to show Matt how funny all this stuff is.

Don't get me wrong, I only did some minor skimming.  I have a long drive down to the OBX tomorrow morning which was going to be tag teamed with the oldest little bro (who I am currently slightly perturbed at since he bailed on me t-minus 8 hours before the estimated meet-up time).  Seriously, I really have been looking forward to this time with Scotty and am upset that he just couldn't take off work to come (insert inside joke...really, no hard feelings, although Mom's pissed at you [and I'm not j/k about that]).  This last minute decision on your part doesn't reflect well on the generosity extended by her future in-laws (by the way, are you all annoyed by the fact that I keep using parentheses?  I happen to love them and it's my blog [i.e. deal with it]).

Goodness, it's late...I need to head to bed.  After all, I won't be able to nap tomorrow in the car (that's my last jab at you, Scotty, promise...unless you don't pay me back for the Father's Day present we got Dad ASAP.  I might even start to charge you interest, j/k).

Here's to an awesome 4th down in the OBX  :)

The Pencil Test...duh, duh, DAAA! Uh-oh!

So being the skeptic that I am, when Di told me about the Pencil Test, blogged about, and then strongly urged everyone she knew to try it, I was like "yeah, right...that thing does NOT work!  The person who's holding that pencil is making it sway the way they want to.  There's so many chances for error...yada, yada, yada."

For those of you who don't know, it's an experiment involving looping about 3 inches of sting to a needle and then pushing that needle into the eraser of an un-used pencil.  You place the pencil over your wrist, hold the string, and wait.  The pencil will start to sway back and forth the length of your arm (boy) or back and forth across your arm, like a watchband (girl).  Apparently, the pencil stops swaying and will do tiny circles and then begin to sway again to indicate another child.  Then it will stop all-together to indicate the test is finished.  Of course, this is where I was extremely skeptical (did I mention that yet?)...how can the pencil just stop?  But it actually did...all 7 times we tested just the two of us!

Well, my grandmother and I were hanging out today down at they're farm (catching up on my blog-stalking) and low and behold, Di makes another post about The Pencil Test.  So we decided to try it out.  Here's when the duh, duh, DAAA comes in (insert a maniacal shout and hearty giggle from Cassie).

The Results...(I feel like this is a remark of impending doom...just kidding, it's all just for fun)...

Boy  -  Girl  -  Girl  -  Boy  -  BOY     (Insert, big UH-OH!)

Goodness gracious, Pencil Test!  For real?!  I mean, don't get me wrong, I LOVE kids and want a bunch...but FIVE?!  For serious?

Now don't get me wrong, I completely realize this is just for fun, and I refuse to believe that something like this could actually predict the gender, birth order, and number of children that Matt and I will have, even if Di does have 8 examples of cases when it was correct.

So, because I am THAT skeptic girl, I did it 3 more times...SAME Result (insert HUGH UH-OH)!

Okay, whatever, stupid Pencil Test!  I'll show you!  I'm going to try you out on my grandmother!

Girl  -  Boy  -  Boy  -  Girl

Fine, Pencil Test...you were right that time...let's try it another 2 times!  Ha, we'll get you now!

Ummm, same results two more times!  What?!

Anyway, again to reiterate...I know this is just a fun thing to do, but it will be interesting if this thing proves right.  Only time will tell...