Here’s the picture of the proud parents of Whitney.

*information has been deleted to protect the innocent.

It’s been a week since the 50th Birthday Bash. I hadn’t written about it before because I wanted to do justice to this awesome affair and my schedule didn’t allow for it. Well…. I have time now!
Can I tell you how fabulous that Family was? The whole family seemed to be from Perfectville. They all seemed to genuinely love each other and care for one another. I understand that they go on vacation together for a week every year. I was green with envy by the time they left.
One of the brothers-in-law brought this gargantuan slushy machine. If anyone knows anything about me it’s that I love, love, love slushies! The BIL was making strawberry daiquiris and Pina Coladas. I’m not a Pina gal so I didn’t try that one. I did, however, have 4 strawberry drinks. I can tell you that they were out of this world. The machine the BIL brought was an industrial Island Oasis machine that they keep in restaurants and bars. When he was cleaning it at the end of the night he let out all of the remaining ice shavings and Tony and I made snowballs - it was that fine of snow.
At any rate, …. I don’t necessarily drink. Never have. On Sunday morning when Tony and I were cleaning up Tony told me how much Bacardi goes into those drinks. One shot per mixed drink. WEEEELLLLLL NO WONDER I was laughing so much!! I kept saying (all night) “I have never laughed so much with perfect strangers” - it IS true, the Hostess’s sister is VERY funny and her laugh is throaty and contagious but I think the Bacardi helped a little. But Bacardi or not, you’ve gotta love the story about the sister putting the little sister into the dryer when they were children. I still laugh thinking about this. They were just really funny people. They cracked me up all night. I may have had just as much fun as the Host of Honor…. sorry, I love my job!

Yesterday I had the huge honor to have Whitney’s teacher nominate her for student of the month. This isn’t any ol’ student of the month. Here in Columbia they make a huge to-do out of this. They present the award before the school board ( I can’t believe you guys sit through that every month - it’s from Kindergarten to 12 grade!) and they have a large gathering of folks that come for other school business. The Columbia Ledger is there and they take pictures of the student with their parents and Principal and post it in the paper (picture to come). At any rate, you must have perfect attendance for that marking period - Whitney didn’t. Instead her Phototech teacher nominated Whit for the student of the month award on her academic abilities. For those of you who don’t know - Whitney is going to Photography School in August. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared for all of the hoopla and it made me swell with pride. Whit is very reserved, kind, grounded and polite - minus hormones - and it feels good that someone else, other than us, see that. So thank you, Columbia and many more thanks to Mr. Hill!

Ok, it seems like this is dragging on forever…. what was supposed to take “3 months ma’am” has been over 2 years. No fault of my contractors… just life.
The floor is done…… well, the subfloor at least is. The electrical work is done… well at least it’s roughed in…
Ok the artistic rendering is done! Really. Awesome picture by Ryan Hoch.