racers ready!

Tonight was Pinewood Derby!  (This picture is from Jake's summer camp at the beach.) Took some frantic movements to get home from Canby, Jake dressed in his uniform, and everyone out the door, but we made it there before 6:15.  Which I must say was the time posted on my calendar, in the newsletter and the scout email reminders as the start time.  So we get there, only a few other people there.  They were still setting up.  Apparently we were early....  I think maybe I get a special notice with times so I am "on time"....  Must be a pattern there...

Anyway, the scouts had hot dogs and popcorn while the big kids aka adult leaders, finished polishing the track and setting up the caution tape.  These guys take this very seriously...  The cars will be touched by race officials only.  Scouts can remove their cars from the race area after second elimination round.  There will be two officials at the starting line.  Two officials at the finish line with the racing scouts in that round.  No car will race without the scout present.  But it was fun.  The kids get pretty excited when their cars are involved but then as they are eliminated, the crowd thins out and it is left to the stragglers to finish up the race.  They set up the old retired track in the hallway so the kids can continue to race their cars while the official race is going on.  Lucas and some other boy scouts helped as officials.  He was in charge of the score board.  Apparently there was some confusion as to who advanced and NASA had to be contacted and just dragged out the evenings events....  Anyway, Jake's Haz Mat car - it was all black with some yellow triangle on it that looked like the Hazardous Material Warning sign...  was beaten out by the E-Racer.  This was a pink car with the eraser logo on it.  Cute idea.  And really did look like an eraser.  The boys finally finished out the racing and then it was time for the "big kids" to race...  They just crack me up.  The competition between these two guys was something else.  This one guy took the car right out of the box and painted 100% natural on it, added the wheels and that was his car.  Then the other cars were all painted fancy and carved into shapes etc.  The block of wood won!  He apparently won the "big kids" race last year too so had to hold his ground.  

When the winners were awarded their trophies and the judging complete for the best car, we headed home.  Homework with Jake - done.  Dishwasher going, again - done.  Boys in bed - done.  Just need to load the laundry and put this old woman to bed, aka couch again.  Plug in my new humidifier - that is if I can figure out how to get it to work without leaking water all over.  Thought I was going to electricute myself this am when the cord was wet and I was standing in the puddle.  Guess I may just have to read the book....   Tomorrow is another day.

ok, before signing off tonight, I need to vent a little bit....  Just how many phone books does one household need?  In the past week, I have picked up 7 bags of phone books from my driveway.  They don't even deliver them to the door anymore.... (Shawn - remember our phone book delivering days, or should I say day?  We only lasted one...) Two of those were in one day! In each bag there is 1-2 phone books depending on the coverage area for that phone book.  Do we really need 4 phone books of the exact same copy???  Did the delivery guy not check in when he returned from his route that my house got put back on the list again?  What do I do with all these phone books, use them for fire starter, fill my recycle bin?  Who do I call to say I don't need anymore phone books - will their number be in one of these books?  Will it be clearly marked in these thousands of pages that never has any useful information anyway?  Seems like whenever I do look up a phone number and call it - it is disconnected.  And my old phone books have all the notes in the margins - am I supposed to transfer my notes to a new phone book like my calendars?  Do the people typing these books realize there is this thing called the internet that we all use now to look up phone numbers or even to just mapquest it so we can just drive there?  So I came up with a solution, working so far, to let the phone book delivery people know that I, in fact, have already received my newest copy of the phone for every possible city, county, district, and yellow pages for the practically the whole state of Oregon and SW Washington.....  I have been leaving them on my front step.  There is quite the little pile there now, but I haven't had to pick up a new bag out of my driveway in a couple of days.  Of course, I forgot to mention that usually when these are found in the driveway, it is after I have driven over them a couple of times.  And when a plastic bag with paper in it sits in the rain and is driven over by a Tahoe a couple of times, it really isn't going to have any valuable information to me anymore anyway...  Ok, so enough venting.  I feel better.  Will make some tea and head to bed....

And Shauna - I will try the honey instead of sugar in my meds.  Hey, I am practically not drinking coffee with tons of creamer anymore because you have me hooked on tea.  And I don't put sugar in that anymore, I add a little honey when it needs it.  But I am just taking some baby steps here.  Don't think I am ready to start those carrot, wheat grass, pomegranite, spinach shakes you are drinking... lol  I can't remember exactly what you said were the ingredients in that but that may take something bigger than a baby step...  Like say a truck, pushed by a bus, pushed by a train, pushed by a plane......

Anyway, have a good night!  Thanks for listening....