Another Pinewood Triumph

Well, it's long overdue, but I wanted to update you about a few things that have been going on lately. The first was Mason's pinewood derby competition, held in late January. You could cut the anticipation and excitement with a knife, because not only did the coveted pinewood victory hang in the balance, but a rare snowstorm was making it's way toward Raleigh. Many community events were cancelled, but this is Scouts....the DERBY MUST GO ON! You may remember that last year, Mason took the overall first prize, so he was very nervous and victory was very important to him. As you can see, he was actually praying for victory.
I'm sure that he's praying for himself, to be content with whatever happens and that he might be a perfect example of good Christian sportsmanship.
Here are all the cars, carefully lined up, having met the proper weight requirements. This is quite the technical production.

Here he is holding his little sissy. Both of the boys have such a strong bond with her, it's a little hard for Lucy. Ah, the joys of the constantly-changing family dynamics. I keep telling Lucy to hang on, the terrible twos are not too far away.

Mason watching the action with a couple of friends. In the below picture, I have to point out that the boy standing next to him is 11 years old, competing in his last pinewood derby (dripping with envy here for the parents!) But the point is that Mason is so incredibly tall for his age.

One more shot of Mason's car. His is the blue one second from the left. He designed and did most of the work himself.

Getting ready to race. He won again, at least in the Bear den category. They didn't race all the cubs against each other, which was probably a good idea so there were more winners, but Mason was hoping to take the whole thing like he did last year. Matt was pretty confident that given the opportunity, Mason's car would have won against any other car. I was not there, because the Underwood Winter Carnival was scheduled for the same night, and Samuel was just beyond excited about it, so I took Samuel and Lucy with me to the carnival while Matt took Mason and Lizzy. We are really starting to learn the power of dividing and conquering.

One more closeup of the champion car.

By the way, we did have a great snowstorm, so I'll have to post some pictures of that tomorrow. Better yet, we have video of the derby car in action, but I'm not sure how to post that to our blog, so maybe I'll figure that out later.