Pineweood Derby

Almost two months ago, Nate received his pinewood derby at pack meeting. I always wonder if there is really a person in the universe who doesn't leave their car until the last minute. Certainly not in this house. The Monday before the races (already ahead of last year's schedule), Dustin took Nate over to cut his car into the "wedge" shape he had drawn out. Then he left town, leaving me confused over which was the car and which was the leftover piece of wood that Dustin wanted to use as a doorstop for his church office. Nate was suppose to sand the car while he was gone, but then there was the whole concussion, Sadie getting sick and the fact that I'm completely useless when it comes to anything "handy." So yeah, you know, it didn't get done. Friday afternoon all the neighborhood boys were over at our house and not one of them had spray painted their car, so I felt a little bit better.

Between birthday parties and football, it ended up getting one coat of black paint and exactly zero decorations. When they should have been out the door for the weigh-in, Nate was sitting in the kitchen trying to cut a lightening bolt to stick on the top. I quickly found a BYU face tattoo and we slapped that baby on there at the last second. Nate promptly named it, "Black Cougar." Fierce.

After throwing the car together so haphazardly I wasn't expecting great things, but in the end, Nate WON! The whole darn thing. I don't know who was more excited over the win -- Nate or Luke. We put the car and trophy up in a place of honor, but Luke kept climbing up to get it down.

I asked Nate what he remembered about his last race. He could only think of two things: "When we were racing, we were tied until the very last second. And that I yelled when I won, 'I WON!'"