A Future with Scripps?

Jake's been bitten by the bug...the spelling bug that is. We love to watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee. But this year, it was on ABC a month ago. I haven't blogged about this yet, but Jared and I were in San Diego during the Bee AND...because we have DISH Network, we weren't getting ABC until just recently. However, a few days after the fact, Jared caught a repeat of the final 11 spellers on ESPN and DVRed it for us.

The boys and I finally got around to watching part of it last night. I suggested they might want to get a piece of paper and try writing down the words to see how they do at spelling them before the word is displayed on the screen.

I was surprised by how close they BOTH came at spelling some of these words, off by only one letter! Obviously, Cooper was going pure phonetically, which works with a select few of the words chosen for the Bee. Without studying the etymology of words (the language of origin), Jake was thinking hard about what he knows about words to spell them. It paid off.

I have no idea what these definitions are, let alone how to pronounce them and even still how to spell them.

ophelimity was given--Jake spelled it: opheilimity
simnel was given--Jake spelled it first: simnal, then symnal. Cooper spelled it: simnol
goombay was given--Jake spelled it: goumbay; Cooper spelled it: gombay
byssinosis was given--Jake spelled it: byssonosis

Being only one letter off isn't good enough to be at Scripps or any spelling bee for that matter. But for not having studied, I thought those were pretty darn good guesses!

Jared was bitten by the bug as well. The 2-bucket flu bug that is. He started horking his intestines out around 5am, waking me up. He threw up for at least 5 minutes straight. Eewwww.
And then again at 6am. And 8am. And 11am. It's 12:30 now. I think he just got out of the shower. I can't remember the last time Jared succumbed to a bug. He's pretty resistant. I think it was back in 2007 and that's iffy. That episode could have been the result of food poisoning...not my cooking, though! Hopefully the bug has stopped ravaging his insides and will leave our family alone. Only spelling bugs allowed here!