My Dumb Kid, Part 2

Well, she did it!! The Cochise County Spelling Bee was held last Saturday, Feb. 14, at Buena High School in Sierra Vista. Cheyenne went up against 31 other students, and came out on top, just like we thought she would!

The group was cut in half after the first round (seems like that's usually how it goes), then down to 6 in the second round, and 3 after the third. All three of them misspelled their words in the fourth round, so got to repeat that round, and one more went out. In the fifth round, it was down to Cheyenne and one other, who missed his word. She then needed to spell a final Championship Word, which she did correctly, to win First Place.

Her words were:

1: plateau
2: cavalry
3: bravura
4-a: kremlin - misspelled "cremlin"
4-b: sequin
5: alcohol
Championship Word: "musicale".

So proud of our little WORD NERD! :) The Cochise County superintendent, Trudy Berry, was there to present her with a trophy, and a $100 cash prize! It was a very exciting day. It was made even better because our whole family was there to cheer her on -- plus Brittany brought her friends Joe and Brooke, and both grandpas and Grandma Dorothy and Aunt Valerie were there as well.

She also got front page coverage in the Sierra Vista Herald, with a big picture of her with Madison and Taryn and Brooke.

She will go on to the State competition in Phoenix next month.

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. :)

Holy Cow!

So last night Braden & I took my parents out for dinner at Texas Roadhouse in Sierra Vista. We have a tradition of going out to dinner this time every year to celebrate my birthday on the 14th and their anniversary on the 15th.



We had a delicious dinner and a good time visiting, and on the way back home, just outside of Sierra Vista, we were talking about how blessed our family has been that out of all of us children and grandchildren (33 in all), nobody is sick or in the hospital... and just then, we ran into a cow that was on the highway. Braden was driving my parents' new car.



It smashed up the right front fender and tore the right rear-view mirror off of the car, and threw the cow to the side of the road. (The cow didn't quite die, so later the sheriff deputy who came out had to shoot it in the head. Yuk.)



Nobody was hurt, except the cow, and the insurance will pay for the damage to the car, so all's well that ends well, but WOW... what a ride....

Road Trip with THE GIRLS!!

So my friend Donna just turned 45, and is engaged for the first time! My other friends from High School are so excited for her, we just had to go out to Utah and attend her bridal shower and spend some time celebrating with her before she moves out to Oklahoma to get married.

We had the BEST time... we hadn't been together in about 27 years, but those years just melted away and it was like we were teenagers again. Except, as Arlene said, now I understand most of what they're all talking about. :)

Linda (who lives in NM), Stacey (who lives here in St. David), and Jenny (who also lives here) met at my house Thursday night and we drove as far as Gilbert, to pick up Arlene (my cousin, another of the "old gang") and stay the night there.

Next morning, we left at about 8 and drove to Flagstaff, where we stopped for lunch and visited with Jenny's daughter and sweet grandbaby Nathan.

Then we were back on the road, and got to Donna's place in Murray, Utah at about 10pm. She was so happy to see us, and we were all a little sleep-deprived so that evening was a riot. We laughed and laughed. A lot. About stuff that wasn't even very funny. You know how it is.

On Saturday we went shopping at Gardner's Village, and then went back to help Donna get set up for the shower.

It was a lot of fun -- good food, and a lot of nice people showed up, including our old Seminary teacher, Brother Richens!! It was so good to see him and his wife again after 30 years! He broke his back 11 years ago so is in a wheelchair, but other than that he's still the same guy. Donna seemed to really enjoy the shower, and ended up with over $1,000 in cash gifts!

That evening we drove south to Richfield, and stayed with Bro. & Sis. Moss. (Brother Moss was the missionary who baptized Donna's family years ago.) They are such delightful people and they were so kind to let us stay in their beautiful home that night. We had a lot of fun visiting with them and getting to know them.

The next morning, Sunday, we left for home, and Donna went to Stake Conference with the Mosses. We drove all day, got to Gilbert at around 7, ate some yummy steaks that Arlene's husband Kris had grilled, and even got Cheryl (another of our high school friends who lives in that area) to come over and see us! We also called Shella on speakerphone (yeah, another one, who lives in St. David and wasn't able to come on the trip with us), and told her we missed her and also congratulated her on her new calling as Relief Society President!

After visiting there with Arlene's family for a couple of hours, the remaining four of us headed out again for St. David and got home around midnight.

It felt funny to be back home, after spending 3 fun-filled days with my best friends... it was nice to be home, but I was really sad that it was over.

More pics of our trip can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/btcml53872/UtahTrip##

More Random Stuff

Okay so our Brittany is one of those COLLEGE kids... spending all our money and living it up....

No seriously, she's doing very well. She is a freshman at EAC and is really having a great time. She is in a nice apartment with three other girls and some awesome neighbors and she has her own car which she uses to drive everyone else around... so far she isn't failing any of her classes (that I know of), and absolutely LOVES her music classes... especially Marching Band. It's her first experience with this and she's really having fun with it. She's also taking private flute lessons and getting better and better on her piccolo.

Taryn is a cheerleader! Only for the P.E. credit, but she is doing well and seems to be enjoying it. Taryn is amazing... she gets herself up (sometimes) early for Show Choir at 7, then goes all day until after cheer practice which ends at 5. She's also Freshman Class Secretary. She loves Seminary and seems to be doing well in her classes and is a very bright, responsible, sweet young lady.

On a completely different note... last week my cousin Debbie passed away... she had a brain tumor. She was 64. Too young to die. She will be missed.

I was able to go to her funeral in Goodyear AZ, and took some pictures of some of our family that was there. I really love my family... these are awesome people who have been a major part of my life, especially in my childhood, but I never see them except at funerals! I think that is wrong. So I'm on a quest to find them all and get back in touch. Cousins I used to play with but haven't seen in 40 years, for instance. Once I get a contact list compiled, I hope that we can get a reunion organized, maybe for next summer. Anyway, here's a slide show of the pics I took of some of the family that was there. They're not very good because I took them with my cell phone, but here they are. (Is this better, Kimberly???) :)