Alek's Pinewood Derby Race 2009

Yesterday's other big event was Alek's Pinewood Derby race for cub scouts. His car was very sleek and very fast! He and Gary have been working on it for weeks. The neat thing they did this year was have all their den over one night and cut out all the cars together using Gary's tools. It was fun to see all the designs in the planning stages and then the final versions all painted up.

The Wolfs and Bears ran together, and each scout got four runs, one on each track. Alek's car was fast, coming in 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd in his four races. His fastest time was 3.28 seconds, which would have been a track record except his two den-mates had cars going at 3.25 and 3.24 seconds! Alek's car came in 7th place out of 42! We are thrilled at his placement - the top 3 have to go on to the divisional competitions and that gets so stressful. So, we were aiming for a respectable showing, crossing the finish line for each race, but not have to go on! Perfect!

Here they are: Nathan, Daniel (3rd place), Andrew, Alek, Ben (1st place) and Evan:

Blue car is from 2007, Yellow Pokemon car from 2008, and Batmobile from 2009. All are now being displayed on Alek's new shelves in his room.
Batmobile up close ... love the fins!

Pokemon car up close - Pikachu rode in the top seat last year. Really cool design, and Alek loved the Pokemon, but didn't go very fast.

First year's car was sleek and designed with stickers ... nice looking, and finished all four races.

Ben's Final Climb Video

Yea Ben!

Ben won his division at the Rock Climbing competition, and it was TOUGH. Two boys got 100% on the Junior climbs, so they had a climb-off at 5pm today. The climb was a tough one on the Youth route. Ben took his whole five minutes attempting it, and had to do some 'crack climbing' to make it to some of the holds. It was so impressive, and so difficult for him! I'll try to load the video ... his arms and legs were shaking. He fell at about 2/3rds the way up, but the other boy didn't make it as far.

Here he is at the 'climb-off' ...

Jason, his instructor, was so encouraging and complimentary to Ben when he came down. I really like this picture and think I'll print it for Ben ... I think he'd like it in his room. Ben has a lot of respect for Jason, and really listens to his advice on the wall, even though Jason pushes him hard on his climbs. And you know, it's the rare person who earns Ben's respect!

We are so proud of you Ben! Here's a hug from Mom ...

Ben getting his prizes ... he won a Patagonia shirt and a gift card to Great Outdoor Provisions Company ... guess where we're going tomorrow??

Ben 1st place, and Will 2nd place. Ben went right over and congratulated Will when he came off the wall. Really good sportsmanship on Ben's part, and something we've worked on so hard! (but it is easier when you win ... I know. Had he came in 2nd, I don't know what Ben would have said ...)

Climb #4

Climb #4 was so tough ... the three kids ahead of Ben didn't make it over the first ledge, and all were in his classes and part of the rock climbing team. Ben took a break between #3 and #4 and had a Clif bar snack and some water.

Finishing his snack and thumbs up, ready to climb.

Starting to climb #4.

Approaching the first ledge, where the other climbers stopped. Ben's so tall he powered right over it.

Moving up after the first ledge, the holds get much further apart here.
Powering up over the second ledge! Swinging his weight to leverage onto the next hold.
Right on over the second ledge!
At the top! Ben got a perfect score on all 4 climbs! We go back tonight at 5pm to see how he placed in his division.

Ben's First Rock Climbing Competition!

This morning Ben competed in his first Rock Climbing Competition. Held at our gym, he had a great morning! He competed in the Juniors division, ages 6-8. He was well positioned, being tall and lean and having practiced a lot over the last few months. They closed the rock walls last Wednesday, took down all the routes and put up the competition routes on Thursday and Friday. So this morning was the first time anyone saw them. The Junior routes were graduated ... the first two were fairly easy for Ben, but route 3 had some challenges in it where the climber had to climb on two sides of a rock corner, and the holds got further apart.

Here are some pictures of climbs 1, 2 and 3 ...

An excited Ben with his scorecard. Climbers get the score of the rock number of their highest controlled point on the wall. If they get both hands on the top rock of the climb, they get full value for the entire climb (a perfect score).
Celebrating a successful climb on #2 ... at this point, Ben has a perfect score since he climbed to the top of route #1 and route #2.Starting route #3. Note the corner of the rock and the holds on both sides of the corner.

Heading up the wall!

Top of the 3rd climb! A perfect score!

I'll post climb #4 on the next blog. You can see more of these pictures on my Facebook album.

More Snow Pictures

I finally grew an Amaryllis
Snow dogs - screwing around!

The whole Amaryllis

Pretty snow dogs!

By mid-morning, the snow was about 6 inches deep

More Snow!

Ben (in blue) and Alek sledding at Kyle's house.
I filled the birdfeeders last night!

Chase watching the inauguration!

Chloe rushing the camera!

Alek building legos - darn, you can't see the snow out the window!

Walking down the street this morning.
Looking back at our house - those are our cars in the driveway.

Heating up in front of the fireplace, watching the inauguration.

Ben watching the inauguration.

Alek watching the inauguration.

Snow!

We have 6 inches so far ... it's been snowing since 5am. School's closed of course! Will post pictures soon.

Snow?

The forecast is calling for 2-6 inches of snow tonight ... oh how exciting that would be! It's been a couple years since we've gotten any snow. Last year, there was a 100% chance of 6-8 inches of snow, so we went out an bought sleds, and of course we got no snow. So, we're ready with the sleds if the snow should come!

3rd Grade Projects

It's been so long since I've written ... the gym and the 3rd grade projects have taken up a lot of our time. Below are the completed projects which were turned in on Monday! They each included a written paper (at least 3 paragraphs, and a paragraph has 4-6 sentences) and a presentation. This was a real challenge for Ben who hates to write. But, he wanted a good grade on the paper, so he decided to do extra work and interview our neighbor, Ms Rhonda, who donated a kidney three years ago to help her friend. Ben made up five questions to ask her, and one Sunday afternoon we went over and he interviewed her. I recorded it, and it's wonderful. I can't post it because it's too long, but Ben watched it over and over and then wrote his additional paper. It turned out to be about 6 more paragraphs long, so I was really proud of him.

Alek's project is on Orion, the constallation. This is the drawing he did of Orion the Hunter, and it has the major stars poked out. The picture is set on top of a light box that he and Gary built, so the major stars shine through the picture.

Underneath the picture is a black poster with the major stars poked out and the other stars poked out. It looks really awesome in a dark room when it's lit up! I hope it showed up well enough in class today ... of course it's a bright shiny day today!

Ben's project is on the kidneys, and his poster has an illustration of how the blood flows through the kidneys and how the urine flows to the bladder. He was really excited to get to say 'urine' and 'pee' in his presentation.

Here he's demonstrating how the poster illustrates the correct size and position of the body .. ha ha.

In other news, Ben made the rock climbing team at the gym, so he'll be a rock climbing practice each Saturday morning for two hours. HURRAY! He's got a sport he's passionate about! He's really good at it too ... it takes a lot of thought and planning as you climb, and he's lightweight with long arms and legs. Perfect body for it. And, you can't be afraid of heights!

Pictures

Some more changes around the house ...

These are my new drawer knobs in the kitchen.

This is the new refridgerator
Inside the new refridgerator

Chase is so cute, sleeping on the couch.
Chloe can't stand anyone else getting the attention - she had to come sit in the picture!

The puzzle the boys finished over Christmas break.
You may wonder why there are so many pictures of the dog and so few of the boys? Well ... this is what happens when I try to take their picture!