Official Spelling Bee!

My kids did the spelling bee. Isabella was eliminated in the first round. Her first word was "saffron"! Now I as a mother would have given her credit because in my opinion she did stop and think and spelled it "saphron"! I thought that was a natural conclusion that the "f" sometimes is spelled with a "ph"! I was proud of her anyway. Zech got eliminated the 3rd round from "relevant". He spelled the second "e" with an "i". Now he knew how to spell that word so I guess nerves just got the best of him. Zech and Isabella were in the elementary catagory (1st - 5th). A third grader won! Sarah and Katie were the only two in their junior high category (6-8th) and the battle was on. Mind you both were guaranteed a prize for the 1st and 2nd place winners, however they were matched word for word! I was amazed. They went on and on, not missing any words for 20 minutes or so. Then Sarah missed a word and the other girl spelled it correctly, then she had to spell another word which she missed and so Sarah got to stand back up and the battle was on again. This happened 3 more times, where Sarah missed and Katy spelled one correctly and then missed another one. Finally Katie spelled the championship word correctly and she won 1st place. We were so proud though of Sarah. That was hard without really a break because once you were done the other spelled and then you were on again. Kind of nerve racking! But she did great. She won a $25 gift card to Hastings (let's hope she buys books with it).