The snow was nasty when Saturday mornings rolled around... 

Not excited at all... Not. At. All. You could say it was niveous outside

But the eagle crew along with 7 other teams dusted off our cars and rolled down to the Wales Theater in downtown High River for the 7th annual Grate Groan Up Spelling Bee all in support of Literacy For Life. 
First, a little about them! Lit 4 Life offers a variety of programs to all residents of the County of Foothills from birth to preschool, school-age to adult, families, and seniors. Programs are provided at little or no cost to the learner, family or community agency. Our focus is on building the essential skills needed to lead a successful life in family, work and community. 

Now back to the Bee... There were 7 teams and a surprise mystery team this year. 
-The Big Rockies made up of members from Okotoks Town council
-The Dewds from the Dewdney players (the local theater group) 
-The Radioheads from 99.7 Sun Country 
-Members from Western Financial
-Toun Cowncl (spelled wrong) from High River Town Council
-The Windmill Thespians, members from Windmill Group Theater
-Team Eagle, of course 
-and the mystery team with RJ Sigurdson and Barry Crane 

I don't remember most of the words we got as I am still not convinced any of them were actual words in the English language... but it was an incredible day with some amazing people. After about 3 and a half hours of spelling, the title of best spellers in the foothills was handed to the Windmill Thespians. Congrats ladies and gent!

Here are some of the words we got:

Adumbrate: 
verb ad·​um·​brate | \ ˈa-dəm-ˌbrāt   
Used in a sentence: The social unrest that adumbrated the French Revolution

...that was a tough one! Team Eagle (made up of myself, Kristi and Natasha) had only two goals in mind. Not be the first ones out and to beat 99.7 Sun Country! We didn't care if we lost just as long as WE were not the first out. Our spelling bee dreams came true as Sun Country used up all of their Mulligans and got booted out of the Bee! Wooot, that's a two in one for us!

Now... we were the next to fail but it doesn't matter... WE BEAT SUN! 
Here's the word we got wrong...

Apocrypha:
singular proper noun: A·poc·ry·pha /əˈpäkrəfə/ 
Apocryphabiblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture.

NOT FAIR...

Thank you to Lit 4 Life, all the participants and of course to the "Word Nerd" who had to pronounce all these impossible words! 
See you next year.

~Logan