CotY Awards

The CotY Awards gala was last night, and Josh and I had been looking forward to it ever since Steve invited us to attend as guests of SAI. There was one small hitch. An unexpected snowstorm dumped 6 inches of snow on us yesterday! Well, we knew we were going to get some snow, but they were originally forecasting less than an inch, so this was quite a bit more snow than we were anticipating.
I checked with Rob, and he said they were still planning to go, and I even called the hotel to confirm that the event had not been canceled (nope!). Josh dug out the car, and I put on my sleeveless evening gown, snow boots, and my longest, warmest coat, and we ventured out into the 19-degree weather. It was still snowing and the roads hadn't been plowed, so our top speed was about 20 mph the entire way to Rockville, MD. It took us about an hour and a half to get there -- normally a 30-minute drive -- but we still made it in time for dinner.

When we arrived, Josh discovered that with all his efforts to dig out the car and make sure we had a shovel, snow chains, and other necessities on hand, he had left his tuxedo jacket at home. D'oh!
It was pretty dark inside the hotel ballroom where they had the event, and my ancient digital camera doesn't do well in low light, so my photos didn't come out too well. [Incidentally, my birthday is coming up soon -- hint, hint...] We sat at a table with Steve W, Steve B, Rob and his wife, Addie, and a couple from another company that had been nominated for an award. Here's Steve B, Addie, Rob, Steve W, me, and Josh in our fancy duds.
We had a nice buffet dinner and then the awards ceremony began. You might recognize Greg Hadley, the awards chairman, as the guy who took all the professional photos of our house. He spoke briefly at the beginning of the event. They gave out awards in about 38 different categories, and both of our categories were at the end, so it seemed to drag on forever.
Sadly, we didn't end up with the trophy in either category, but we were a "Finalist" in the whole house remodel, and came in second ("Merit") for green renovation. The house that won in that category was not very architecturally interesting -- basically a big white box with solar panels on top -- so we figured the judging was based more on 'green' than overall aesthetics. I could tell that Rob and the Steves were disappointed that we didn't come in first, but they still posed graciously with their plaques.
Greg had set up a spot to take professional photos of everyone with their awards, so we had him take several of our little group. He remembered that I had a blog, so he told me I was welcome to post his photos on my blog as well. He'll send them to SAI, so I'll have to wait until they get them and forward them on to me.
Steve W left after the ceremony, but Rob and Steve B posed for a few photos with their plaques.
Then we went back to the ballroom for some dancing. Unfortunately, no one was really dancing, and it sounded like the DJ hadn't bought any new music for at least 20 years, so that was a bit of a disappointment. We hung out a little longer and took some more photos. Here are Rob and Addie, looking both adorable and glamorous in their matching outfits.
And Josh and Rob and me. (And yes, even when he's sitting down, Rob is taller than me!)
We headed home around 11 and made much better time on the drive back as it had mostly stopped snowing and the roads had been plowed. It was nice to slip out of my high heels and back into my warm boots for the drive home. I'm glad no one got a photo of that!