Salt of the Earth

Yesterday we had Scoutcapades (regionals for pinewood derby). Our day started out at about 8am when we checked in for the races. Graham’s race was first so we checked in, weighed his car and had a picture taken. It seem like it took FOREVER for the race to begin. Once it did Graham was pretty disappointed because his fast little car wasn’t doing so well. In the end Graham got 4th to last and was sadly, beat by the Weesner twins. We had a couple of hours in between races so we took advantage of the cool events various troops had put together for the day. About an hour before Thomas race- Thomas started getting nervous and kept asking me every few minutes what time it was. I kept trying to calm his jitters down- all the while my heart was beating fast, butterflies were in my tummy and my hands were all sweaty! Once again it seemed like forever for his race to begin and once we heard ‘gentleman start your engines- I tried to remember if I had remembered deodorant that morning because I began to sweat. . I felt a bunch of shaking and i looked over to see Thomas nervously taping his foot on the floor- and I noticed I the shaking was coming from me bouncing my right knee up and down. I got a grip and turned to Thomas and said “you know, I’ll be proud of you no matter how well you do…..” and he gave me a half smile and nodded. Then i said “but I’ll be REALLY proud of you if you win” and he busted out with a big ol belly laugh. The race began. He was in the second one - i think- and the Grim Reaper kicked some serious ass. Thomas second race- same thing. Third or fourth, the big brother of the Weesner twins car barely beat Thomas. His first second place of the day. He continued on to get first in all but one. At one point he tied with the track record (228.4) , until fast Andrew’s car broke the new record 230.3. We had our eye on 3 other cars that were giving Thomas some serious competition and getting some of the same scores as Thomas
-Chance, Weesner, and fast Andrew. (in the end they tally up all the speeds and that determines the winner) Since the Weesner car beat Thomas once and Thomas beat his once- and the speeds were so similar we just weren’t sure how it was gonna pan out in the end. We KNEW fast Andrew would take first- but the other 3 places were up for grabs. They had all the boys go to the stage for pictures and trophies and they started out with 4th place. Chance took that. Third place went to Weesner. I looked over at Mick at this point- worried that Thomas hadn’t placed at ALL because I was SURE that Weenser boy’s car had done better than Thomas. Then they said second place- THOMAS RING!!! I was jumping up and down like a fool. Thomas got his trophy and smiled- a bit disappointed he didn’t get first. It took Thomas a few minutes for everything to sink in and for his heart rate to return to normal- but in the end he was very happy. We stayed and did a few more activities and then came home and i took a nap. I was completely worn out.

See the days events HERE

T