Pinewood Derby!

I think this was Sam's last Pinewood Derby. The fellow who leads the whole boys' program described how he had four sons, and participated in seventeen derbies. Also said that only in one of those was one of his sons a winner. Which he used to point out that it's the care and effort we put in is valuable even if we don't win. 

Here are some shots from this year's race:

Held in the Browncroft gym, with quite an audience

Sam's is the stained-glass one, second from the front.

Here's one of Sam's races. I believe his car's on the right. The track was about 50', and the times were roughly 3 seconds. Cars were routinely within a few hundredths of a second of one another.

Sam's is on the left in this race

Sam came in second for speed among the 5th and 6th graders! He was pretty excited. He wasn't in the top six overall, because the younger grades had some very strong offerings--probably because the contribution made by the dads goes inversely with the age of the child. Anyway, Sam acquitted himself well, and had a very good time.

The derby was last week. This week, for the final meeting of the year, they set up a mini golf set and gave the boys ice cream. A pleasant end to a good year. Without a doubt Sam connected better with the kids and got more out of this year than his previous years. I think very highly of the program at RCRC, but being smaller the boys tended to form cliques.

Sam got tired of my photojournalism.

One last Joshie shot: Josh built this week an elaborate "city" out of blocks and cars on a plank of wood suspended between two chairs. What fun!

It's been a month and a half! How did that happen!
Okay, in no particular order, an update on recent events of note:

Josh's birthday

Josh got a lot of great toys and have been having a blast playing with them

Scary dinosaur which worked perfectly with a hotwheels set we got him

This is Heidi Zinkand reading a book to Josh

Josh gets jealous of the electronics everyone else has. In this case he decided to make his own laptop out of cardboard with pieces of paper glued onto the "screen". He then comes over occasional and asks us to reboot it, which means pasting a new piece of paper on it.

Josh at his birthday with his new Thomas the Tank Engine piggy bank

The party--two hours with a large number of screaming children.

Josh enjoying his new bunny slippers

 Sam

During a recent visit to the zoo. What's more interesting to me than the tiger is how tall Sam's getting.

Sam at Stockade, where they were doing a group circular sit.

This was an evening open house at his school where Sam performed on the recorder with part of an ensemble

 The boys

This is a recent Aunt Amy visit, at the science museum

This is the bunny cake Juli Elliot brought over for Easter dinner!

This is a recent shot of the boys painting wooden cars--Sam's pinewood derby car for Stockade, and Josh working on a wooden car he and I built together

...and. here's my experience of parenting on a lazy Saturday afternoon. (Josh here is playing with his new camera.)