Bee Crazy

Our house has been going spelling bee crazy over the past couple of weeks. Emma and Lindsey both did well in spelling bees at their old school so when the spelling bee was announced recently both girls were excited to participate. They both won a place in the school spelling bee (4-6 grades) by placing in the top three of their class bees.  For the next ten days they had to study a huge list of hard words in order to be ready for the big bee.  It was torture to memorize hundreds of words in that short amount of time. It was torture to watch Emma-who by far studied the most-struggle to accomplish this feat. Many hours were spent quizzing the girls-mostly Emma-on these words. The trouble for me was when Emma or Lindsey would spell a word wrong. They got so mad and often cried. They got so frustrated with themselves and instead of taking a break they just wanted to keep going. Part of the problem was we studied at the end of the day when they were tired.  Though it was a good experience we were glad when it was finally over.

The day started with a fun note from dad.

I'd like to give a play by play of what happened, but in the interest of time we'll just say the results of the bee matched the amount of studying that went on in the house.
Lindsey made it a few rounds before getting out and Emma made it all the way to the end.  If you've ever watched spelling bees you know how intense they are. It's a killer on a mom's heart. After so much studying I wanted Emma to come out on top. She spelled a couple of hard words -ubiquitous and exacerbate- that I wondered if she remembered how to spell. The other boy in the final with her had some hard ones too- pharmaceutical and schizophrenia- and he got them right. After going back and forth a few times it came down to the word "narcissistic". The boy had to spell it first and he missed it so Emma had to spell it right.
Here's the clip:

Yeah!! She did it. As a winner she got a trophy and a turkey.  We are so proud of her.

Here's the fan club there to watch her bring home the big prize.

I forgot to mention a fun thing about the boy who was in the final with her and took second place. First of all I thought this boy would be another boy- my friend's son. He has won it before and the other kids thought he would win again.  When Emma heard about him she was determined to beat him. I thought it would be fun to see them together in the end because his mom is a very good friend of mine. Well, he got out in an earlier round because of a dumb mistake.  So it wasn't he and Emma in the end, but the other kid you see pictured. The cool thing is that the kid in the picture is the son of Aaron's brother Eric's good friend. He and Emma are only six days apart and his mom and I were pregnant together. They just moved to the valley recently like us. So, the new kids are the ones who took first and second.

I hope that makes sense.  Good times. Good times.