My Dumb Kid.... :)

Cheyenne competed in the school spelling bee this morning, AND WON! There were 19 kids to start with, from 4th to 8th grade (Cheyenne is in 6th grade). She will go on to the County competition in Sierra Vista on February 14. This is her second time in a row--last year (5th grade) she won the school bee and then came in 3rd at the county level.

It got a little tense this morning-- after 6 rounds, it came down to her and her friend Hannah (also in 6th grade). They went back and forth several times, until Hannah finally missed a word and Cheyenne spelled two words correctly to win.

Here are the words Cheyenne spelled correctly:

Round 1: thermal
Round 2: talc
Round 3: safari
Round 4: gazelle
Round 5: panzer
Round 6: souvenir
Round 7:
Hannah: benefactor
Chey: shogun
Hannah: vibrato
Chey: feldspar
Hannah: expertise
Chey: crochet
Hannah: ramada
Chey: popularity
Hannah: karate
Chey: excise
Hannah: gestapo ... which she misspelled as "gestopo."
Chey then spelled "apricot" and the winning championship word, "fiery."

So proud! Here's a picture I snapped while Mrs. Davidson (one of the judges and Chey's 2nd grade teacher) was congratulating her and announcing that Cheyenne also won last year's spelling bee.

Cheyenne worked very hard (okay, Braden & I "pushed" her just a bit), so I was really glad that all her practice paid off. She's hoping to win that $100 first prize at the County Spelling Bee... and she has a really good chance of doing just that.

I forgot! There IS a picture! Our new family portrait, taking the day after Thanksgiving 2008. I love it. :)

And now, for something completely different.

Okay, I know it's been 2 months since my last entry... so here's something new. Not wonderful or even interesting to anyone but me, but it's different from what was here before.
Let's see. I'll talk about the holidays. FUN!! For Thanksgiving, we had our Davis Family dinner at Brett & Dannie's house, and then our traditional Young Family Day-After-Thanksgiving feast at Teri & Tracy's. Braden got sick that day and came home, but the rest of us stayed overnight and hung out for a while. Fortunately his illness was short-lived and he was better in a few days.

Christmas... The break was too short. We loved having Brittany home from college for 3 weeks--I got totally spoiled having another driver in the house to run errands for me. That was nice. We had a family get-together with Steve and his crew on Christmas Eve -- that's where we usually meet for light snacks and the kids do the nativity play, then we drive out to the Barneys' life-size Manger Scene afterwards, then back to our homes.

Santa found our house, as he usually does (no matter how hard we try to hide it). We all got gifts in abundance and had a great time with family. Braden's family came over that night--we had 11 adults and 17 children in our humble home... that was an adventure but we all lived through it and only one toy got broken--Logan's new basketball hoop set.

The next day my side of the family (except Troy and his gang) gathered at Grandma & Grandpa's for dinner and gift exchange. Grandpa and Kim had been sick all day, and Brittany & Cheyenne were complaining about upset stomachs... but the rest of us enjoyed the yummy food! (Later that night, Madison & Taryn were throwing up, and Britt & Chey were fine! weird.)

Thanks again to Kim for giving us the world... seriously, the globe of international goodies was a fun treat. The cookie sticks from Singapore (or was it Japan?) were entertaining, and the Tim Tams went fast. Love the little musical instruments too. We have yet to make the flan for Cheyenne, and we're still a little mystified by the wind-up sushi.... but other than that, it was all good!

Okay, back to life... the kids are all in school and so far no one's failing anything. Our church meetings start at 9am which is way better (IMO) than 2pm... I don't like getting up early, but I do love getting home at noon and having the rest of the day to nap, spend time with family, eat, play games, etc.

I guess that's it for now ... sorry (Kim) I don't have any pictures to post... just a lot of words... but hopefully this was enough to move that last post down the page a bit so we don't have to look at it anymore. :)