Today Mason participated in the State Geography bee. What another fun experience! This was organized in a different way than the spelling bee. There were 100 kids from grades 4th-8th. They were divided into groups of 20 where they went through 8 rounds and earned points for correct answers. The top 10 kids from all 100 went on to the final. Mason got 4 answers correct in the 8 rounds. Not too bad. That score was right in the middle of the group. The questions were incredibly hard. I don't even know how these kids study for it. A lot of it is through experience at school and remembering what your teachers tell you and also paying attention to current events. The questions cover so much information! Mason did a great job and should be very proud of this accomplishment. Plus, he got a free tshirt! 

Cassidy got to be in the first grade play. They did Snow White and Cassidy was a narrator.  She loved rehearsing and was so excited to be a part of this. These pictures aren't the best, but she's part of the group of narrators. 

State Spelling Bee

Mason participated in the state spelling bee today. There were 160 students from grades 4th-8th that participated. Because of the large number of students, they had everyone participate in Round 1 spelling a word on stage. Rounds 2-6 were written down by each student. After the written test was scored, they read off the numbers for who made it to which round. I kept listening for Mason's number to be read, #49. I didn't hear it until the coordinator announced that the next names he read were going on to compete in the finals. Sure enough, Mason's number was called! So awesome! There were 35 students left for the final rounds. Mason went on to compete in the finals, but ended up getting out in round 2. There were 10 other kids who got out before him, so I guess you could say Mason came in 25th place. I couldn't believe how far he went. The winner of this competition gets to go on to the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. and Mason was right there with them. My mind hurts from spelling all these words mentally as the kids on stage spelled them out loud. We have spent the last 2 months looking over and spelling 1200 words from all different language origins. Mason put a lot of effort into this. Neither of us are going to look at spelling words for awhile. And if you are interested, the words Mason spelled correctly were: dogma, daffodil, ostentatious, prerogative (which I just had to use spellcheck to get the correct spelling), piccolo, filibuster (spellcheck as well), and springbok. He was mad at himself because he went out on a word he knew how to spell, but misheard the guy say it. It was tahini and he spelled tahiti. Amazing effort by this kid!

Cassidy had her "Invention Trade Show" this morning at school. She designed and created an invention and was able to show it off to all the parents. Her invention is called "Water Fun" and it helps people have fun! She invented it because she thought people might like to play with it. She was super excited about showing it off this morning. Cute girl! 

Ellie's Swimming

In January, Ellie tried out for the Utah Valley Rays, a USS year round swim team and made it! She has really been enjoying it and has already improved so much. She had her first meet after only practicing for 3 weeks. Then this weekend, she had her second meet. She swam so well! Her stroke technique has improved so much and she swam a lot faster! She dropped 4 seconds in her 50 yard Fly and 4 seconds in her 50 yard Free. She also dropped 3 seconds in her 50 yard Breaststroke. She has a wonderful coach and I have been really happy with how the UV Rays run their team. We're very excited for lots more swimming!