The South

Where tea is sweet and accents are sweeter; summer starts in April; front porches are wide and words are long; macaroni and cheese is a vegetable; pecan pie is a staple; Y’all is the only proper pronoun; chicken is fried and biscuits come with gravy; everything is darling and someone is always getting their heart blessed. -unknown

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Happy Birthday Brooks!

(click picture to enlarge)


Yesterday we spent a wonderful morning celebrating Brooks' 6th Birthday! We had wonderful friends and family there to make yesterday special for him. Happy Birthday Brooks!

Posted by Picasa

Friday, May 29, 2009

Day 15 and 16, March 23rd and 24th

We began the flight from Singapore to Tokyo in the wee hours of that Monday morning. The flight was fine. I watched 4 Christmases that has Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon in it and remembering laughing out loud so many times that people were looking.



I snapped this photo in the reflection of Brent's TV screen. We saw a lot of people with masks because SARS is still a scare to many people over there. Once we landed we taxied around the airport for FOREVER! No joke, it took us 45 minutes from the time we touched down until the time we were at the gate. Here is Brent
checking his watch. Once we got off the plane we were told that everyone connecting to Minneapolis (which was us), Los Angeles, and Detroit needed to go to a particular gate. I didn't say anything, but that seemed a little strange for all 3 flights to be going to the same gate. Once we got there we found out about the Fed Ex plane that had crashed only hours earlier on the runway.

We were told that because of this crash, the long runway was closed, which meant that all flights on the big planes were delayed indefinitely. They gave us a coupon to use in the airport and a calling card, and other than that, that was all we knew. I went up to a different terminal and took this picture of the wreckage out the window. Moments later all of the screens lowered so no one else could take pictures. (It is hard to see but it is the black in the middle of the picture.)

So many questions were going through our minds. What were we going to do now? Brent called his dad, who was still in Indonesia at the time to let him know what was going on. As soon as it got to be a decent hour in the US, Barry was going to call Brent's mom and my mom.

The airline began putting all of the first class and business class passengers on other flights to the US, but "us coach folks" were just stuck.

We sat down by the gate where we had been told about the delays and just waited. We don't know what we were waiting for, but what else can you do. I took this picture of these cute grandparents with their grandchild. You could tell that they thought the world of their grandson!

Brent went and asked the gate people if their was any hope of getting on other flights to the US at this time and they didn't know. There was chaos all around us but Brent was very kind to the lady because it wasn't her fault that the plane had crashed.
About 30 minutes later the same girl he talked to came over to Brent and asked if he was the one that had asked about getting on other flights and he said YES! She then whispered for us to follow her. I grabbed all of my things and took off, stuffing things back in my bags as we went. We got on this elevator in the corner and she said (in broken English) "I hope no one follows us." She took us to another set of gates and said, "San Francisco, Seattle, or Portland?" We said we don't care. So she took us to the Seattle gate and turned us over to another Northwest employee. We were ecstatic and amazed! We truly believe we got on that flight because Brent was nice to her. When we got on the plane Brent called his dad to update him so that he could update the family. I felt bad for everyone already on the plane because they had been sitting there for over an hour so that they could make sure they got our plane completely full before taking off.

This was a picture that I snapped while waiting to take off because I was so happy to be going to the US.
We flew to Seattle and I can honestly say I don't remember much about that trip. Brent said I slept a lot. So we boarded and left around 5 pm Monday and arrived in Seattle around 12 noon the same day. It really screws up your body!
Here was a picture as we came in to Seattle.
When we got to Seattle we learned that there were no flights toward the south on Northwest nor on Delta until the next day. WHAT?
So we got a hotel next to the airport in Seattle and stayed there. IT WAS SO COLD! After being in a tropical climate for two weeks your body doesn't adjust well to the cold. We met a couple in the same predicament as us, but they were from Minneapolis so they weren't cold. In fact, the lady was in shorts.

Now on to the hard part. By this point we had been awake for about 24 hours but knew we couldn't go to sleep or we would be all messed up. We took a nap at the hotel and only limited ourselves to 2 hours. We decided for supper to just order pizza to the room. THAT WAS THE BEST PIZZA EVER! It was really good pizza plus we hadn't had cheese in two weeks. Yum!
This was our view from the hotel room. It was just how I pictured Seattle: Cold and Raining!
Around lunch time the next day we flew to Atlanta. Somehow we were "lucky" enough to sit by a woman who hadn't flown much and was apprehensive about flying. She had to hold my hand when we took off. She was a very sweet lady but she talked a lot! Looking back she made the flight go by fast.
I took this picture of a souvenir she was taking to her great grandchild (while she was in the bathroom), just so I could remember her.
So we landed in Atlanta with no problems and then got on 13th flight of the whole trip to Montgomery. I took this picture of the lights over Montgomery and almost deleted it when I saw it but I thought it was pretty. It somehow represents our trip.
Strange, Colorful, Busy, Electric, and Unforgettable. Thank you for bearing with me through all these posts. I am going to use Blurb to convert these posts into a book to remember the trip by. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

To Brent


I am not a greeting card writer, nor am I good at sentiments, but I didn’t want this day to pass without acknowledging the one I love.

Today is Brent and my 10th anniversary.

If you had told me 10 years ago what my life would be like at 10 years married, I don’t think I would have believed it. I try to thank God everyday for how he has blessed our family, even when it is just the small stuff.

To Brent,

I love you for the time we shared together in the “Love Shack” in Hope Hull because it truly was a shack!

I love you for your love of baseball, in that it is small things and simple things that make you happy.

I love you for how you “suit up” by putting your mask on and sunscreen etc, to cut the grass outside, when you are highly allergic to all vegetation.

I love you because you are smart. That seems so foolish, but it amazes me at the things you know, or how you can figure things out with such ease. I am always amazed at the logic puzzles you work. I take one look at them and know that I don’t want to attempt them.

I love you because we have both similar interests and also things we don’t share interests in. To me, that is the perfect situation, in that we can enjoy things together, yet retain our own interests that make us unique.

I love you for the time we lived in Montgomery, wondering if our neighbors across the street were drug dealers.

I love you for how you loved the “red car,” and how you always let me drive it, even when I knew you wanted to drive it yourself.

I love you for the love that you show to your parents. It is such a great example to me and to the boys. Your parents instilled in you traits that you are in turn passing on to me and to our children.

I love you for the father that you are two our two children. I love how they have attributes that are just like you. Brooks always likes to please people, and Reese has a love of life, and I know these qualities come from you.

I love you for your love of the Lord. How you demonstrate that love to me and to our children. I am always amazed that when you are asked to speak, whether it is a sermon, or a bible class, you are ready to do it, without a moments notice.

I love you,
Only you,
And always you!

P.S. I love you more than Cheetos!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Day 14, March 22nd

"Relaxing" was the name of this day! I sat out on the balcony of our hotel room for a little while. It was fun to just take in the beauty around us.
We worshipped in our room because it was Sunday. Brent said the nearest church was 3 hours away. I enjoyed it just being the two of us though. We then loaded all of our belongings up and met our driver in the hotel lobby and paid him for his services. I felt like we were making some big financial deal with him because Brent and him talked for a little bit and then Brent counted out the money and gave it to him. I wondered if we needed a contract signed. HA! We then went to the airport and left to go back to Singapore.
This would begin our long
long
(sigh)
long journey home. This was just a three hour flight so it wasn't bad.
I believe this is more rice patties.


"Are we there yet?"


This was palm trees that they make palm oil from.
We arrived at the Singapore airport around 6 p.m. and checked into the transit hotel there in the airport. Because our flight the next morning left at 5:30, that meant that we were going to have to be at the gate at 4:30. After we checked in we walked around the greatest airport on earth! I won't go into all the details of it, but it is wonderful!!! We ate at this restaurant that had a man playing the piano, and just outside of that was free xbox game play, big screen tvs etc. You could almost take a vacation to the airport.
Well, and so our journey begins home. I couldn't wait to see the boys by this point.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Graduation

I cannot believe an entire school year has already gone by and my precious child graduated from Kindergarten!

Brooks and his friend.

He was chosen to say the prayer. I was so proud of him.



This next picture makes me laugh because I think Brooks practiced his poem so long with no diploma in his hand, that he didn't put it in his hand when he was supposed to.

Congratulations little man!

Boy, Boy, Boy, and Boy!

I am so glad that my boys have such good friends to play with. Their lives would not be the same with out their friends.

I love these boys like they are all mine. They are precious children most of the time. Sometimes on the other hand, they can be.......

And I love them anyway!
Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Day 13, March 21st


I will go ahead and warn you, this post is picture heavy. But it was the last day of our sightseeing.

This is the only picture I have of our driver. His name is Gede, (I hope that is how you spell it,) pronounced "G'day." We were about to take a boat ride to an island and while I was waiting on Brent to pay, I just was messing around with my camera and took a picture of this ant.

Our boat was a glass bottom boat. It was really neat. We took some bread with us to feed the fish.

The island was like a petting zoo.





This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it because Brent doesn't like snakes. I can tell he is laughing with a nervous laugh. He told me he loosened up a little once he saw the snake's mouth was taped.



A HUGE bat!


Brent is the one on the left :)




I included this picture because in another area of the "zoo" they were having cock fighting! I was shocked and told Brent. He casually said, "We are not in the U.S. Rebecca." So I just had to bite my tongue and try not to look over that way.

I also got to enjoy a refreshing Sprite in a bottle!

Before we got back on the boat.

This next picture was one of my favorites from the entire trip. This is in a rice patty. We just pulled over the car and took their photo. After I took this picture, one of the ladies waved at me.

We continued on toward the top of a mountain and got to enjoy lunch at a buffet looking out over a volcano crater lake. This was where we ate lunch.

It was sooooo good. We then went to an area called monkey mountain, where, you guessed it, there were monkeys. We pulled over at a fruit stand to buy some food to feed the monkeys. Brent gave the money to our driver, so that he could buy it at a lower rate. The lady we bought the food from told our driver (in Indonesian) "They can pay more, they are tourists." Gede then told her in Indonesian, "You better watch it, he (Brent) speaks Indonesian." She then turned to Brent and began apologizing. I am glad I was oblivious to what was going on.

Here is Brent feeding the leader.

The little ones have to grab food when they can without the leader seeing them.
I love this picture!


Finally he was full!



Look at the baby!



On further up the mountain there was a gorgeous view of the valley below.





Just thought I would include this picture I took driving by an Indonesian woman.

Another rice patty.

A statue back in town.

This was another touristy area we went too. There were numerous temples of different cultures all together in one spot. The thing that was a little aggravating was that there were people, including kids, everywhere that were trying to sell us useless stuff. It gets old really quick.

Here was one of the temples. You had to wade in the water to even get there, and even then, you had to be a holy man.







Some more scenery on the way back to the hotel.


After this we were exhausted. We went to Bubba Gump Shrimp for supper. The staff all looked at us funny when we said we were from Alabama. (Not Greenbow though!)