Derby day at the Depot

Even though Bearhug is not attending Cub Scouts with Cuddlebug on a regular basis, he is working on his scout requirements at home and has decided that he wants to participate in the upcoming Pinewood Derby race.

So both Cuddlebug and Bearhug asked me to take them to the "Derby Day at the Depot" where they do a little tutorial at Home Depot on how to make the cars, and they also have sample design patterns and help the kids cut out the basic shape of their cars once they pick a design.

We braved the leftover ice on the roads (it wasn't bad actually, just a little left on the roads less traveled) and went to Home Depot. We are totally new to this, although dh was a Cubmaster several years ago and we've been to the Pinewood Derby before, it's been a while and we've never actually made the cars before.

Note to self: next time, bring paper and pen to take notes!

After the tutorial, the boys picked out the designs they wanted for their cars. I had to dissuade them from choosing one of the "advanced designs." Let's stick with the basics for now and we can get fancy with it next year!

Cuddlebug chose a sleek-looking race car and Bearhug chose a pickup truck (that's the Texan in him, lol). They traced their designs onto the blocks of wood from their pinewood derby kits and then the guys at Home Depot were set up with tools to cut out the cars.

Here they are watching, with safety goggles on (safety first! as Spongebob would say), as their cars are cut out and sanded down a bit. I'm glad we went because this part would have been pretty hard to do at home, we don't have that kind of saw.

Cuddlebug

Bearhug
We decided we'd better do one for Bitty too, because I knew he would not be happy if we came home with two soon-to-be race cars instead of three. So I asked Cuddlebug and Bearhug to pick out a design for him and trace it so we could have that one cut out too. By then, there was more of a crowd so we had to wait in line.

The line was right next to this long, wide, almost-empty aisle. Hmm... wonder what two hyper, overstimulated boys who have already kept it in control up to this point thought when they saw that aisle?


Seems like a good place to run laps, right? Sigh. I let them, because there would be no stopping them anyway and there was hardly anyone there (in the aisle anyway). It's the lumber aisle so it was really wide and they weren't likely to bump into anyone or anything. They wanted me to time them to see how fast they could run it, so I did.


They ran back and forth several times and actually wore themselves out (it's longer than it looks). Not being self-conscious at all, they just sprawled out on the floor to rest near where I was waiting in line.



After that, we picked up a few supplies (like lots of sandpaper!) for their cars and headed across the street to the hobby store to pick out paint colors. We couldn't find any ready-made Pokemon decals so we're going to try to make our own. Wish us luck!

I posted a picture of the cars as they are now (just cut out) over at my photo blog. I'll post updates of the progress as we go until they are complete :).





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