Racing Root Beer

I'm not sure I've mentioned this on my blog before but I am the Cub committee chair in our ward here now (and I teach the Valiant 11 class) and despite several obstacles, we finally held our Pinewood Derby last night. All the credit for a really great race goes to our Cubmaster though. She was amazing--and her family too. It was the nicest-looking and most well-thought-out race I've seen and I've seen quite a few. The only problems came from people not being where they should have been quite on time but there's nothing anyone can do about that. The only thing our Cubmaster would really let me do was be in charge of the desserts and the certificates. She encouraged me to delegate but I didn't listen because I knew I'd have 3 days to make the 12 dozen "lofthouse" cookies I needed but... I didn't plan on getting the flu. I had to do 3 days worth of work in 1, but I managed. And now I know it takes 6-7 hours to bake and frost 144 cookies. I vowed never to eat one of these cookies again after being knee-deep in them yesterday and yet it only took me one day to recover. I had one this morning and they are as good as ever. :-) This just reminded me of the time I was asked to make devil eggs for a church social and then they brought 10 cartons of eggs over. I'd never even made them before but it was a good, if a bit insane, way to learn. Rose was such a good girl yesterday too. She sat in the kitchen with me for most of the day telling me all sorts of crazy things. Apparently she also felt the housework wasn't getting done like it should, and I managed to catch a picture of her "helping" me wash the windows. Yummy.

Now for the root beer part. While I was delirious with the flu, I realized we still had not helped Spencer with his car for the Pinewood derby. I am not a derby fan and am more than a little thrilled that last year will be our last one. We don't own any tools to cut these cars and we've just been too busy to get help this year. So I thought to myself--the boys are supposed to make these cars so surely you could just get a knife and whittle (is that the right word?) it into shape. Not so. I sat there whittling his poor car until I realized I was just destroying it. Jer had a few minutes that night to use the sander and try to help it out a little. The shape it ended up reminded Spencer of a soda bottle and root beer is his favorite so here's how his car looked:

I think it ended up really cute but I heard someone mention that they were sure Spencer did his car mostly by himself (maybe the weird, unsightly gouges on it were a clue). :-) Two years running! I make the car, everyone thinks the kid did it. That's talent. The very best part is that he came in second again. He was 2nd in the bears and 2nd overall last night. Even when it was on a Stake level last year and he was racing 4 times as many cars, he came in second. So I must be doing something right!
I am just so relieved it's all over, and I'm not sick anymore and now we can focus on getting ready to see Grandma Howe (and Amy I think?) on Sunday!