Pinewood Derby 2007

Little Robby had his first Pinewood Derby last night! It was great fun! When we started helping Robby build his pinewood derby car we did the best we could with the hand tools we had around the house. We didn't have a power saw or anything of the sort, so we tried to cut it by hand. Very quickly we realized that it wasn't going to be a very easy task, and two days before we had to check the car in I called one of the brothers in our ward for help out of desparation. He told me that his brother-in-law (also in the ward) had the right tools. He offered to call him for us, and a few minutes later we got a call from Kip (the brother with the tools). Kip offered to let Robby and Chap come over to use his tools late that night after he got home. In short, Kip saved us! He helped cut the car, drill holes for the axles, and even drill holes and pour melted lead in the back of the car (for weight).

The next day we painted and decorated the car. The day after the car was due for check-in, so Little Robby and I took the car over to have it weighed. It turned out to be .09 oz. to heavy! That may not seem like a lot, but if you saw how much Robby and Little Robby had to hack out of the bottom of the car with a chisel to get it under the approved weight, you would realize that .09 oz is a lot for a pinewood derby car. Robby and Little Robby managed to get the car fixed in just enough time to have it entered that night.

Here are the pics:

Here is the parking lot.

Here is Little Robby and his racer.

And here it is finishing one of the races. They got to race 17 times, and then the results were averaged to determine the winner.

Now to get the scoop on how he did you have to watch the video clip here...

Pinewood Derby 2007

A Visit to the Zoo

We were once again lucky enough to recieve some free tickets to go to the zoo from one of the professors at the University. She was so kind as to remember that we had been interested in her offer of free tickets last year, that she gave us her free tickets this year. The only down side to the day we chose to go was that we were having record heat for the month of March. It got up to 99 that day. Fortunately we made special effort to go to the zoo early in the morning to avoid the heat.

Here we are at the giraffe enclosure. When I first wheeled Jenna up to the fence I tried to point out the giraffes in the distance, but she didn't see what I was pointing at. Then a few minutes later the giraffes started walking towards us. You should have heard her squeal, "Oooooo!" Then she excitedly began to tell me all about what she saw.

Since we had more tickets then we needed for the three of us we decided to bring along Robby's friend, his sister, and his Mom.

Fortunately, the zoo in Arizona has a splash pad to keep the kids cool when the day gets really hot! Jenna wasn't so sure she wanted to push through the crowd of kids to stand in the water sprays.

We were surprised that the kids lost interest in the splash pad so fast until we saw what they were up to...

Building a sand castle!

All in all, it was a fun spring break day!

Crazy Jenna!

Once again Jenna is setting style trends... Here we have shorts on the head. "Hat!" she says.

I have also seen her pull open the drawer next to her crib and put bloomers on her head! Very cute, don't you think?!

Springtime Fun!

The weather has been wonderful lately, and we finally decided to go and get some sand for our sand box! We haven't used it since we moved here, so Robby and Jenna were really excited to try it out. When I bought the sand I over estimated how much it would take, so I ended up with one extra bag. I am not too worried about that though because after one day of playing in the sand, I realized that it won't be long till Jenna removes at least one bag worth of sand from the box since she was more facinated with throwing it out than keeping it in! Now I just have a back up bag to replenish the box when necessary.

Robby really enjoyed showing Jenna how it's done!

A day in the sand box wouldn't be complete without a little taste testing. ("Yuck!" said Jenna.)

To complete our springtime fun we planted vegetables in our garden bed! I'm not sure how well they will grow since I am pretty sure we were late planting (our part of Arizona gets pretty hot, pretty fast), but we're going to try at least!

Little Robby advances in karate!

Right at the end of February, Chap (our nickname for Little Robby) had his 4th belt test and he passed! Now he is an orange belt black stripe. He's looking really sharp. The most exciting thing about this advancement is that he got to move up a class to the intermediate level and in that class they spar (i.e. fight)! They don't hit or kick hard when they spar in class, it's mostly for developing agility and a quickness of mind. We are about to order his sparring gear which consists of head gear, hand and foot pads, and a mouth guard. I'll post a picture with him all decked out when the gear comes in.

Here he is looking sharp during the test.

With the height difference it seems like an unfair match! Fortunately Dallas (yes, that's the boy's name) isn't really trying to hit him.

Here Robby is at the top of the beginning class.

Later that week they had the belt ceremony during class. Here Robby is shaking hands in a karate handshake with his teacher.

Now you can see Robby and his new black stripe!