awana grand prix…

Robb left for the week and I was left with a small wooden car, wheels to attach and some paint.  Mistake #1.

It was time for the Awana grand prix…the end of the year event for Sammi’s first year as a spark.  She seemed little concerned about the car zooming down the track as aesthetics and so I concerned myself with the same thing.  Mistake #2

We looked good.  So, we showed up, registered our pink #6 car, weighed in (which left me gluing some washers to the bottom because that wasn’t something I even considered), finished inspection and went to finally test drive the car on the track before parking it for judging and racing.

And it was a stall…the car wouldn’t even move.  hmmm…mistake #3,4,5 and 6.  Apparently I wasn’t supposed to glue the wheels in but even if I hadn’t I had hammered them in bowed so that they didn’t even fit into the track.  Luckily a grandfather, whom was probably capable of building cars like this at age 18 months, saw the failed test drive and took pity.  He walked over, picked up the car and immediately started the examination and realignment.

It was tedious enough to have all the other cars test-drove and parked.  They were waiting on the pink Sammi and this grandfather that I wished I could appropriately throw my arms around with a bear hug.  This girl just remarked her concern over whether one of the jewels would fall off during the run, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her car may never see the bottom of the track.  I think I did bear hug her.

and this is just cute…

This is her heat. The boy in blue to the right wound up winning fastest car and there’s Sammi standing there so optimistically…

And here we are again in the final heat for those cars in the running…for the slowest car award…

And Sammi still smiling…perhaps she’s hopeful that at least she’ll win something…and she did.

Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!