Race Day!

Today was the Pinewood Derby Race for Eli's cub scout pack. We've been working on his car for a couple of weeks. This is what you start with:

After cutting, sanding, weighting, filing the axles, lubing the wheels, and painting this is how it looks:

The whole family went out to watch the race; there were about 20 cars. Eli's turned out to be off by a couple hundredths of a second (we think due to the axles not being prepped enough) and lost his heat. But it was a great time for all and we look forward to trying again next year.

Boy Scout Trip #2

The pack meeting this month was on the Railrunner! We started north of Albuquerque and got off 20 miles south of town. All for $2 for adults and free for kids under 10. It's a very nice, new train, and fun for boys of all ages.

Scout trip #1

Eli joined the Cub Scouts and has enjoyed it immensely. We had our first Scout campout recently and we crammed a lot into a short amount of time: fishing, swimming, hiking, whittling, astronomy, and all the fun that goes with camping out (S'mores, stories, songs, tents, etc).

We camped at Cochiti Lake which worked out well. The star field at night was amazing and we watched shooting stars and satellites fly over. Eli passed the cub scout swim test in the lake which was more difficult than I expected. We hiked our favorite spot--tent rocks--without losing any cub scouts over the ridge or in the slot canyon. It was a great and wearying time.