Last week-end
Last Saturday started with me going up to church with Mimi for a children's ministry work day. I slept in (woo-hoo) so I did not get there when it started, but I put in a good hour and a half. While I was there, my husband (who thinks I should now refer to him as "the Hubs"...not likely, LOL), spent the morning putting the finishing touches on the kids' Pinewood derby cars. The Pinewood Derby is a big event in Cub Scouts. REALLY BIG. You take a block of wood, 4 "axles" (more like nails), and 4 wheels and craft them into the car of your imagination. Of course, they are meant to be done "as much as is possible" by the scout. But what 7 year old uses power tools? Really? When the Derby started, the boys literally whittled their cars from wood blocks. Now? Now everything is done to optimize winning. Cars are shaped, sanded, painted, and poly-ed. Axles and wheels are sanded too to remove even the slightest burr. And then graphite is added to the wheels so they have a dry lubricant. Then you weigh them. Your initial kit weighs in at 5 oz for the block of wood and the axles and wheels, and that's the weight you want. So then you have to add weight to your finished car to make up for the wood you carved off. And you want it to be as close to 5 oz without going over as is humanly possible. Tell me what 7 year old does all this? NONE!!!! These are really the dad's events, because tell me what 7 year old wants to LOSE? NONE!!! So they will let their dads "help" in the name of winning. It's crazy, I tell you.
Anyway, to show you how crazy it is, the finish line is electronic, and measures the time to the ten-thousandths of a second. Yep, you read that right. And in some heats like the one below, all four finishers had the same time until you went to the hundredths of a second.
TJ came in second in his den by 5 THOUSANDTHS of a second. Oh, and they dropped your lowest speed, so really he won his den because his speeds were all very uniform, but the boy who won in the den actually lost to TJ when they raced each other. Lost by 5 tenths of a second. But that was his lowest race, so they dropped that score. Oh well, it's all meant to be for fun anyway.
Here's TJ's car winning one of his races.
And did I mention there were sibling races? So my husband had to do this whole process 3 times? ARGH!!!! Below are our 3 cars.
Sunday, of course, we had church. I was serving as our "Children's Ministry Counselor", or what we call the Dorcas (after Dorcas in the Bible, but our husbands have talked about getting shirts that say, "If my wife is a Dorcas, does that make me a DORK?". Tee-hee, how many can I order??? Basically, the Dorcas just takes kids to the potty, helps calm crying little ones, gets snacks ready for the toddlers, etc. It's a floating position, and I enjoy doing it. My husband was, as always, in the sound booth, although this time he ran the sound and someone else did the power point. I can't remember what we did the rest of the afternoon. Mostly little projects around the house like replacing lightbulbs that require ladders, etc.
Anyway, to show you how crazy it is, the finish line is electronic, and measures the time to the ten-thousandths of a second. Yep, you read that right. And in some heats like the one below, all four finishers had the same time until you went to the hundredths of a second.
TJ came in second in his den by 5 THOUSANDTHS of a second. Oh, and they dropped your lowest speed, so really he won his den because his speeds were all very uniform, but the boy who won in the den actually lost to TJ when they raced each other. Lost by 5 tenths of a second. But that was his lowest race, so they dropped that score. Oh well, it's all meant to be for fun anyway.
Here's TJ's car winning one of his races.And did I mention there were sibling races? So my husband had to do this whole process 3 times? ARGH!!!! Below are our 3 cars.
Sunday, of course, we had church. I was serving as our "Children's Ministry Counselor", or what we call the Dorcas (after Dorcas in the Bible, but our husbands have talked about getting shirts that say, "If my wife is a Dorcas, does that make me a DORK?". Tee-hee, how many can I order??? Basically, the Dorcas just takes kids to the potty, helps calm crying little ones, gets snacks ready for the toddlers, etc. It's a floating position, and I enjoy doing it. My husband was, as always, in the sound booth, although this time he ran the sound and someone else did the power point. I can't remember what we did the rest of the afternoon. Mostly little projects around the house like replacing lightbulbs that require ladders, etc.
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