Derby Day

For some reason, the day our Cub Scout Pack has its Pinewood Derby is always a crazy-busy day for us. I remember last year's insane Derby Day clearly, and think that this year was competing to be even crazier.

For some strange reason, a few weeks back, I volunteered our family to help clean the church building this Saturday morning, the day of the Derby, even though it was already looking to be a full day. Adam stayed home with the still-snoring littles, while I took the big boys. As we left, Adam said, "Have fun!" I kind of rolled my eyes at him, and said something like, "Shyah, as if." But it actually was a fun morning, scrubbing toilets and urinals with some great families from our ward.

After that, we dropped some books off at the library and went home. I had a quick work-out with Adam and Jillian, and a speedy shower (alone!), then Ben and I dashed off to Target to grab a birthday gift for one of his closest buddies. After much-too-much debate over what to get Owen, we made our purchase and I drove up to Gleneagle to drop Ben off at the party. Then I zoomed (at speed limit) back down to watch Zach play his last basketball game of the season. It was a great game for Zach, and his team ended up winning with upwards of 40 points to 4 (they mercifully stop keeping track when your team is 10 points up, so I don't know what the actual score was, but it was pretty rough for the other team).

I was starving after the game and suggested we go to Five Guys for lunch. Oh, bad idea! Not that it wasn't oh, so tasty, but we just didn't have the time for it! We pounded down our lunches and drove back up to get Ben from the birthday party. We quickly realized we didn't have time to get his basketball stuff from the house before the game, but luckily we had another kid in the car with all the necessary uniform items. Zach was a total team player, and with only slight protests, stripped down to his skivvies and gave Ben his too-large basketball gear. I had to give Ben my ponytail holder to twist around a handful of the waistband of the shorts so they wouldn't fall down during the game. We dropped Ben and Adam off at the Y and they ran in just before game time; the kids were in the middle of the Pledge of Allegiance.

I felt a little sad, as it was Ben's last game too, and I had to miss it because I needed to make a quick batch of rice krispies treats for our post-Derby snacks and pick up the Pinewood Derby cars and scout shirts. But Adam took pictures and I was given a full play-by-play as soon as I picked up Ben and Adam at the Y, a mere 25 minutes after dropping them off (warm rice krispies treats in hand!). Ben's game wasn't over yet, but he and his friend Dallin from church, who we also picked up, were able to play the first half and leave to make it to the Derby in time. Ben had played well and had scored 5 baskets, to give his team 10 of their 12 points at the half.

The Derby was fantastic. All the boys' cars looked great! It was an exciting day for Ben, his first Derby, and a little sad for Zach, as it was his last. As he does every year, Adam really just let the kids do their own thing with their cars. They design it how they want it, Adam does the cutting with the table saw, but then the kids do all the rest of the work: sanding and painting and finalizing. After arriving and weighing in, we ended up gluing on coins galore to make them heavy enough...this is true of our cars every year. Adam says we have many Derbys ahead so I should probably pick up a small scale so we can stop losing our spare change to our Derby cars.

Zach's car is on the left, Ben's car on the right. All weighed-in and ready to race!The kids had a great time, as they always do.

Ben and Dallin were grinning from ear-to-ear (it was Dallin's first race too)

Luke LOVED watching the cars go down the track. He was pretty entranced!

We were surprised, to say the least, when Ben's car started winning, and then kept winning, and was winning some more. Like I said, the boys do all their own work, no special treatment, so to have a car like Ben's come out fastest in the end, without purposely doing any of the hundreds of things you can do to make a Pinewood Derby car faster, is pretty amazing.

Ben's car is on the far right here, yes, it's behind in the photo, but I assure you that it pulled out the win in the end!
Ben's car ended taking fastest car overall, he beat out all other Wolves, all Bears and all Webelos. I had to remind him once about being humble, when his car first started to look like it was winning it all, but after that he was a classy winner {mostly}, at least he was trying to be a classy winner. :)

Zach's car came in 7th place overall. Second of the Webelos, but it won the award for "Most Expensive." Not that we put a lot of money INTO it, but we put a lot of money ON it. $3.04 to be exact! I could tell he was a little annoyed at first that Ben's car was winning, but he seemed to get over it quickly, congratulated Ben, and loved the prize his car took.

I have to say that the best part of the day for me took place during the races. One of the sweet boys in the group, who had worked so hard on his car, almost entirely by himself, was really upset at coming in last. The tears were flowing and I just felt terrible. But in this boy's despair, I saw both Zach and Ben go up to him and try to cheer him up. Zach told him about how he came in dead last of 15 cars his first Pinewood Derby (I don't even know if that's true, but that's what he said!), and how that finish was worse than this one because we only had 13 cars this year. I think that actually helped the boy feel a bit better. Ben told him how much he loved the boy's car, and that it might win for most creative because it had an actual driver. It was really touching to see them reach out to a friend in need. All the Scouts were great and supportive; what a fabulous group of kids!

It was a wonderful, and busy, day. We finished up the day at Rizutos ice cream (6 inches of soft serve for $1.50!) celebrating with some of the families/friends who had been at the Derby, all of us wearing drippy chocolate-butterscotch-cherry grins.

Saturday evening right before dinner I received a call from one of the members of our ward's bishopric. They wanted to come talk to me that evening. Just before bedtime they arrived and asked if I would be willing to serve as the first counselor in our Young Women's Presidency, and be released as the Wolf Den Leader. Of course, I accepted the calling. But I was pretty floored. I thought that I would be in Scouts for life, and I'm not joking.

I am a little sad, I really did enjoy my calling in the Cub Scouts, even though the boys can drive me bonkers sometimes, and, after three years serving in the Cub Scouts, I was starting to feel kind of like a pro. Plus, I know I am a boy-mom through and through, so I work well with these boys, and I loved sharing the experience first with Zach and then Ben. I've really enjoyed the other leaders I've worked with over the years. I know it might sound crazy to some of you, but I will miss it greatly. In addition, the woman (a friend of mine) I am replacing is pretty irreplaceable, her testimony and love of the Young Women's program is as strong as mine is of the Scouting program. But I am also so excited. I am ready to experience girl-life, something I don't have a great deal of experience with other than the fact that I am one. The young women and the leaders I will be blessed to serve and work with are wonderful. I know I am going to learn so much and grow incredibly through this calling. I have been and will continue to pray for the Lord's guidance and for these dear young women as I walk this new path. And I am glad that my last official day as the Wolf Den Leader was at the Pinewood Derby, one of the best days of the Cub Scout year.

Don't worry, I'm not getting rid of the shirt. I am 99% sure that this mom of five boys will don it once again one day.