Time Travel

 Pinewood Derby car blanks come as a square piece of wood and four wheels.  Dads and sons then (theoretically) transform them into sleek, James-Bond-worthy speed machines through the use of power tools, paint and stickers.  Except that this year, Scott began his Pinewood Derby project with the question, "What would be easy?"  Let's see, what could you turn the block of wood into that most closely resembles...a block of wood, yet still has the cool factor?  The perfect solution was a Tardis!  You know, Dr. Who's time machine?  It's essentially a British police call box, if I have my Dr. Who facts straight.  My wise and creative husband googled "Dr. Who Pinewood Derby" and, wouldn't you know it, a ton of people had already thought of the idea, and they had shared their knowledge on the web.  Bingo!  Templates, stickers, instructions, paint color names, everything was right there.  They just had to execute the design.

The finished product was, indeed, very cool.  Freestone, the biggest Whovie out there, was thrilled.  We warned him that it wasn't too aerodynamic, but that winning the speed race wasn't that important.  Still, it would have been nice not to come in last every time.  Some of the cars didn't even cross the finish line.  Why didn't the Tardis ever get to race those cars?  Considering its bulk, it didn't do too badly, but it has to be said that the Tardis is faster at time travel than space travel.

 This scout uniform is solid proof that Scott and I are the worst scouting parents ever.  Ever!  Free has earned more than just the one gold arrow thing, but the rest of his meager collection has come off.  I blame it on the scouts.  Can't they make a stickier back?  Those patches are so hard to stick a needle through!  And also, let me phrase it this way:  Scott got his Eagle at the first possible opportunity because his parents told him he didn't have to go to scouts anymore after he earned his Eagle.  And I...well...I will say that we have awesome scout leaders, and we love them, which is why Freestone sometimes goes to scouts, even though some of the other boys keep "calling him a brownie and trying to eat his hair."  Hey, Freestone isn't exactly not-weird either!  It sounds like the perfect environment for him.  Perhaps the other boys just don't talk about Dr. Who enough to appeal to Freestone?

 Ptolemy is an inventive little boy.  When he heard we were going to race cars, he went in Freestone's room and got last year's car off the award block it was velcroed to, and brought it with.  He was determined to race.

 When the boys were instructed to write their names on the bottom of the car, he wrote a collection of letters that added up to "PTOLEMY."

 The baseball bat had the cool factor AND the speed!

 Scott whispered to me, only half-joking, "See?  I'm the only dad that even BOTHERED to match my sweater and socks to the car."  He claimed it was coincidence, but we all know it was intentional.  Scott was proud of their car.  Not so proud that we didn't have room to mock Tyler White, though, who was seen testing and lubing between races, getting the maximum speed out of his - I mean Eli's car.  We had to give him a hard time, of course.  Eli's car did win every race it was in, though, so...:)

 After the real races, there were "fun" races, and Ptolemy, speaking of racing, races from the finish line to the start line quick enough to take part in almost every single race.  He LOVED it!  Scott had better be coming up with more creative designs for Ptolemy's official Pinewood years.  They'll be here before you know it!

 Freestone and Brother Williams both had Tardis cars!  They form quite an awesome club!