"S" is for S-M-A-R-T!

Mini Me competed in her very first East Texas Regional Spelling Bee! She placed 2nd among all of the second graders at her school, so she was able to advance to the "Big Show."

There were nearly 40 kids competing in the Bee, and she finished 12th! She practiced and studied, and we couldn't be more proud of her special accomplishment!

In typical parent-error fashion, we kind of breezed over the easy words, and spent most of our time on the more complicated words. She aced the spelling of the word "metal." Unfortunately, they wanted the spelling for "medal." (It turns out that one of the other kids from her school got the word "meddle." That's gotta be terribly confusing for 8-year-olds!)

The pronouncer for the spelling bee was Christine Nelson, the anchor for our local ABC affiliate. We love her! It was exciting to get to meet her and take a picture with her!



Next year, we will be at a different elementary school. The school is new this year, and did not compete in the bee. We intend to make sure that they compete next year, so Mini Me will have another opportunity to dazzle us with her sensational spelling!!

Moving Right Along...

I just wanted to update a few photos of the progress on the house.

The slab was poured last week, before the wretched weather set in. Fortunately, it had enough time to set/dry/whatever concrete does before the rain started.



The storms rolled through last weekend, and then on Tuesday the climax arrived -- with monster hail, wind gusts around 60 mph, and more...rain. Happy freakin' Mardi Gras!

Finally, on Thursday of this week, the framing started.



I couldn't get any good ones inside, because all of the supports are still in place. Once they remove those, I should be able to get some interior photos. Of course, you can't tell squat from a bunch of pictures of raw wood nailed together, but it's exciting to ME.

Yesterday, they built the stairs. That's a discernable feature. I'll try to take pictures tomorrow...you SHOULD be able to tell what that is in a photo. :)

We've had a LOT of traffic through our current home. In fact, a couple looked at it yesterday and are wanting to put a contingency contract on it. YaY!