doings | national bible bee

                                

I'm completely blown away by the National Bible Bee. 

As someone who was raised in church, homeschooled and involved with multiple ministries, I wish I had know about the wonderful people who make the Bible Bee happen and the talented, dedicated parents and children who compete. 

My dear friend, Anna, has been a Bible Bee host in Texas for over five years and while her students (woot woot!) have gone to nationals before, she's never made it herself. Being well connected (this is Anna we're talking about here), the family behind the Shelby Kennedy Foundation heartily encouraged her to attend the National Bee. Good thing we're such great travel buddies!  She invited me along and the timing was good for me so we booked our plane tickets with less than a weeks notice and packed our bags. 

We got in Wednesday afternoon after, ahem, a slight detour. The event organizers met us in the lobby and ushered us to our fantastic room (and goodie basket!) and filled us in on the details for the weekend. We had dinner that evening with other Bible Bee hosts and I was able to meet some of the people who make this thing happen. It's a totally unfamilar group to me and I really enjoyed getting to know some new faces. 

                               

Our name tags said "special guest", but our real intention for the weekend was volunteering as needed. Thursday morning we reported the Little Siblings area to check in kiddos who's parents were accompanying their children to quiz testing. Thank goodness for a hotel that serves Starbucks coffee, because we had to report for duty at 7:30am!

         

   

Thursday evening was the opening ceremony and probably my favorite one ever attended. Short, sweet, to the point, but still meaningful. One hundred and fifty kids filled the stage and I was overcome with the amount of time that each one had invested to be here. Over seven thousand students compete nationally in local bees and by the end of the evening only fifteen remained in the running for grand prize. These kids know their bibles!  Truly the creme de la creme. 

More of my trip to Tennessee to come Ono!

eats | asheville, nc | tupelo honey cafe & early girl eatery

My family was in North Carolina a few weekends ago.  The Chief was speaking at a conference and if there's a good excuse to travel, hey! we're on it.

We don't usually stray too far from where we are staying, unless there's a Starbucks involved.  If that's the case we'll drive clear across the state to find a proper cup of joe.  And by "proper", I mean, in a cardboard cup with mermaid logo on the front.

I digress.

Brooke was dying to go to Early Girl in South Asheville, she's been reading about in magazines and blogs for a while now and needed to see if the cools kid's reviews were all that.  And also, we were talking about going while at our gate at the airport and an Ashevillian (is that what they call the locals?) overheard us and told us that we needed to go, immediately.  How's that for a confirmation?

We hit up Early Girl Eatery first.  The very next morning.  They open at 7:30am, we were there at 7:20am.  And they weren't open yet.  How's that for irony.  Anyway after a minute, the hostess let us in.  The place was pretty hip.  Waitresses in vintage rockabilly hairstyles and outfits, crazy weird artwork on the walls, hand-thrown pottery sugar bowls with llamas on them.  Hip.  The food was awesome!  I ordered grits (because I live in the North and we just don't have the luxury of being able to order GRITS off of a menu), biscuits (because, well HELLO!) and an egg (because to keep this kinda healthy).  It was a plate lacking in color (no worries I probably had salad for lunch...)  The grits were so-so, I'm more of a cheesy grits kinda girl, and they were just a plain grit.  But the biscuit.  OH MY GRACIOUS!!!  It was heavenly.  Overall, we all loved our visit to Early Girl Eatery.  My only regret was that at 8 o'clock in the morning, it was too early to order a slice of the red velvet layer cake that was sitting on the counter when we walked in.

We purchased a few bags of ground grits to take home and some tee shirts.  I now wear that tee shirt whenever I make biscuits, I'm hoping whatever they've got going on over there rubs off on me.

I'm nowhere near responsible for this one, friends of the family had made reservations Sunday after church and invited us along.  I was so pleasantly surprised at this place.  A popular spot that has been since franchised, Tupelo Honey Cafe was fabulous!

I ordered the something-something-something and then, just to be difficult, requested some changes.  Basically, by the time the place was placed in front of me it was a biscuit with eggs and pimento cheese with a side of goat cheese grits.  Perfection!  The addition of goat cheese to the grits was incredible, I need to try that at home.  But the biscuit was only second to the Early Girl.  You can't win them all!  I wish they'd open a location in Chicago, the influence of local food with the southern style is the best.

Now, if only there was a way to get a combo of Early Girl Biscuits and Tupelo's goat cheese grits flown straight to my door for breakfast tomorrow morning...

delightful | new lamplighter theater!

Remember last March when I spent a week in London with Lamplighter Publishing working on two new radio dramas?

Allow me to introduce...

 Jessica's Journey & Titus: A Comrade of the Cross

Two brand new Lamplighter Theater projects just out!  I've listened to Titus all the way through and loved every second, all over again.

Here's a behind the scenes shot of the recording room (I was in the soundbooth checking scripts) with the group of gentlemen who played characters in Titus.  You may also recognize the man in the orange shirt... It's John Rhys Davies!

You can buy either the books or the Lamplighter theater or you can even download the audio right now.
Find it all here... http://store.lamplighter.net/storefront.aspx

Check out the Lamplighter Blog to read more about our time in London with the cast and crew!
Lamplighter Guild Blog - London

And just for giggles, click over here to watch a video of a very awkward me interviewing Peter Moreton.  He was such a delight to work with, hilarious and a veteran actor.  His stories were the best.  You will quickly see why I'm such a "behind the curtain girl".  I never claimed to be Barbara Walters.
Watch  it here... Abbe interviews actor Peter Moreton

quotable | where are we going to find some Coyotes

Miss Grace:  "Okay, so I have friends called the Wolfs and the Foxes, now all I need is some Coyotes"
Me:  (I have no words)

If you know of any, will you send them our way?

manicures | "the legend of the one red nail"

Inspired by my dear friend, Esther.  She was wearing this combo over the weekend and I'm couldn't get over how much I loved it...  So I copied her.  It's shameless, I tell you.  Let's change the subject, hey look! a red cup from Starbucks!  The Christmas switch-over is in full effect over here.

Red: Revlon "Fire"
Glitter: Ulta "Highroller"

And speaking of Christmas, this manicure reminds me of a favorite scene in the cheesy, Hallmark movie  "It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year", with the neighbor and the Christmas lights.  Yes, ma'am I do love me some Christmas Angel Movies!  And Henry Winkler (the fonz!) plays the uncle, which pretty much saves the film from the Velveeta category of cheese. You should watch it.  And then you should paint one of your nails red.

P.s.  I'm not sure whats going on my my hair in that photo, but I promise my ends aren't that bad in real life.  Yikes.  I look sort of like one of those lion statues with crazy hair and human hands.  Only they'd be made of stone and not pale skin and nail polish.  And probably wouldn't wear cardigan sweaters.  Or drink coffee.  Sorry about that.  Over and out.