Slow Response Times - Unsure Source of Problem

Hi,

We are experiencing very slow page load times on our wordpress blog, http://www.hotmommagossip.com. According to firebug, the average time spent waiting for the request to the homepage to return is 14s during peak hours.

To begin debugging this, I started logging the time it's taking for apache to serve the requests. However, the average time that is being logged is around 1 second even though the requests are actually taking 14s. (this confused me)

I also am monitoring the RAM/CPU usage during peak hours, and there is plenty to spare.

I'm wondering if there are any problematic areas that I'm overlooking. I'm confused as to what could cause the request to the homepage take 14s when apache says it only takes 1s to render. (The 14s does not include any external page loads. Just the homepage http request).

I appreciate your thoughts and help!

Aaron