Wow, what a weekend! We just returned from the State Spelling Bee & had a great time! We are so proud of our Garrett & for all the great things he does!! We were a little scared as we left town yesterday, as Garrett came home with the flu. He was so sick & felt like he was going to throw up for over an hour & never did, but terribly sick to his stomach. He doesn't usually get like that when he is nervous, but we started to wonder if that is all it was. Well, we decided to start on the trek in hopes that he would be o.k.... a little Pep-to bismol, a prayer, & a bottle of Sprite. He took it easy & ate a little here & there, dozed off & slept a little. We were able to witness a miracle, about 3 hours into the trip he started feeling better, significantly better & was able to rest! (We were so grateful!) Our hotel was interesting, to say the least they were over booked & we had to use a roll-away... never doing that again - the floor would have been more comfortable!!
Anyway, today we went for breakfast - then onto the college for the Spelling Bee. There were just about 50 kids there. They first had to take a 100 word written test, to narrow it down to the top 25 spellers for the Verbal portion of the test. Here are the 100 words they had to spell in the written test:
character, manicure, tragic, biblical, canasta, angelic, irony, participant, nostril, fiend, anchovy,
nightingale, lilac, paradox, buffalo, nasal, magnolia, ingenious, cabana, academy, protein, barrio, cadenza, hominy, tycoon, scampi, leotard, pretzel, Olympian, sputnik, quiche, temporal, wiseacre, trajectory, protocol, mongrel, fresco, autopsy, innate, condolences, influenza, mascara, enthusiasm, dynamic, admiral, begonia, concert, lucid, parfait, dyslexia, tamale, adamant, tariff, providence, oregano, meticulous, hydraulic, etymology, crimson, amnesia, bratwurst, acronym, fatigue, entourage, strudel, tachometer, prodigal, renegade, virtuosa, praline, neologism, lariat, iguana, egalitarian, antipasto, permian, corporal, tortilla, gregarious, castanets, misanthropy, semolina, motif, rupee, discern, provolone, amenable, malaria, spinet, allegory, patina, condor, femininity, matriarch, precipitate, origami, zinnia, coyote, alliteration, piccolo *(You might want to give it a try & have someone in your family test you. Pretty fun!)*
After the written part we got to leave for lunch. We ran to the mall & had lunch. We had fun
messing around! Then we came back to the college for the kids to get their test back & start the verbal part of the test w/ the top 25. He missed the top 25 by just a few I am sure, he was pretty disappointed & we were sad, but after they started the verbal part - I think he was glad he didn't have to go through the grueling round(s) in front of the whole crowd! (I will post those words if I find my list when we unpack.) We were so excited, the gal who won 1st place in our District, she is an 8th grader & she took 2nd in the State Spelling bee, she missed it by 1 word (ugh). During the practice round it was so hard - all but 6-8 kids would have been left!! So it didn't take many rounds to get the top 5 winners!!
We had a great time & are very proud of Garrett. We were tickled to see how close he was on the words he missed (mainly a vowel he confused....like on anchovy, he spelled it anchovi.)
So like we say... "We can't always be on the top, but it sure is fun to get there now & then. But when it isn't our turn, it is great to see others get the chance also."
1 comment:
Good job Garrett! That's really great to get to state and very exciting! (I love this picture. They looked totally thrilled)
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