// Today was wet - wet - wet. We had tours for a very long time today and sent about 2000 people through the house. It has been hard with all the rain to send people through the house quickly. I feel so bad telling them to speed up and move through the house when they were just waiting for half an hour to get in. It is very tiring but also extremely rewarding. I love seeing people gawk at our home and learning ways they can improve their own home.
After the tours we had a victory reception held by the DOE. They gave a really nice summary of each team in ascending order. I loved seeing all the teams, not hectically running around, in all their glory. Everyone has done so much work and we are finally able to celebrate.

To recap:
13 days of sunshine
Over 2 inches of rain
750+ Volunteers
2000+ decathletes (including faculty and staff)
over 300,000 visitors on the National Mall
74 homes built in the 5 Solar Villages.
These are just some of the many ingredients that went into the 2009 Decathlon.

Tonight we found out the People's Choice Award as well. Thank you so much for all your support, but Louisiana rightfully received the People's Choice Award. Over 18,000 people voted around the World. That is amazing! So many people have been impacted by the project!

A funny side note that I want to throw in: there was a lady in a red coat (known as the lady in the red coat) that was not on a team, but she would walk around the mall daily and talk to people about the houses as if she were a part of that team.

A wrap up for our successes:
We placed in the top three of 7 of the 10 contests, not including overall scoring.
14th in comfort zone
12th in net metering
6th in lighting
3rd in water and market viability
2nd in engineering, home entertainment and appliances
1st in communications and architecture
and 3rd in the 2009 Solar Decathlon!!!
Thank you so much for all your support, following us, bringing attention to the competition, having hope, voting, putting up with my tired spelling and mistypes, tolerating my explanation points (!!), donations, love and helping us make it through the past 2 years! We had an extremely successful 2009 Decathlon. I could not have hoped for anything better. This was the greatest experience I have been given and I know I will NEVER forget it. This is a magnificent group of students, faculty and staff.