Pinewood Derby Time!!!

It is "that" time of year again. We seem to always be pushing it at the last minute, but this year was worse than others. Since we were gone for the month leading up to the derby, we had no time to get Ryan's car carved out and ready. Jeff took Ryan to a store to buy a pre-cut car and all we (I say "we", but there was really not much of "me" in the "we" part) had to do was put it together, paint it, and get the wheels spinning just right.

Here is a fuzzy picture of what the finished product looked like. The name of it was "BYU Cruiser."

When we showed up, we thought we were doing really good, because we were getting there about 5 minutes early. As I saw Ryan running into the church I noticed he had forgot to put on his scout shirt -- strike 1; then I saw his hair (oh my goodness) that was in desperation of a serious haircut -- strike 2; and then we get into the cultural hall to find that we are the last people arriving (25 minutes late) strike 3. I think we should have been DQ'd by then, but since it is church, they don't really do things like that.

Now this is our 3rd year of doing this derby, and we had a lot to live up to. His first year of doing it, he took the Grand Champion trophy home. Last year he was not in the final four, but he did really well still. So, this year, we sat back and enjoyed, wondering what was to come.

I was so into the racing, that I forgot to get any pictures of his car coming down the track. But I did manage to capture this one:

This is the final standings of the boys in the Grand Champion Round. Ryan took 1st; Daniel Fairbourne -- 2nd; Dominic Jensen -- 3rd; and Chase Smith -- 4th. It was very fun for all the boys. There were some very creative cars that raced, and I think everyone seemed to be very good sports.