We love Holidays!

Okay, since I have been a slacker and haven't really posted much about our family since before Christmas, I am going to try and have a little catch up here. We have had a lot of fun holidays lately and it has been fun to celebrate them with the girls. They get excited over the simplest little activity that we have really enjoyed the holidays.

Here is just a little glimpse from Christmas since I didn't post one thing for it. Some of our funnest things we got to do were: making gingerbread houses, looking at lights, being with lots of different family (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas), our ward activity (where we dressed up like biblical times and got to be in Bethlehem when Jesus was born) and of course decorating the tree and opening presents.







I am going to share a little of our Valentines day. We had yummy pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast, and we had our little heart shaped sandwiches for lunch, and of course we had a fun candle lit dinner for four, including one of our favoritest foods....SHRIMP. Our family loves shrimp!


Then for St. Patricks day of course we wore green and then we had lots and lots of green food to celebrate. I didn't do the corned beef hash, that just doesn't sound appetizing to me, instead we just ate the foods we like that are green. Starting with breakfast we had green milk on our cereal. For lunch we had green juice and green grapes. And then we finished the day with a dinner fit for a leprechaun. We had green spinach tortillas that we used for burritos, which had green salad and avocado and cucumber on them. We also had lime green jell-o and more green juice, which was followed with green ice cream. Needless to say we won't be wanting to eat anything green for a while.


Then we had Easter and we enjoyed that too. We had our easter egg hunts on Saturday. First we woke up and found the little hidden treasures left by the Easter Bunny and then we loaded up and headed to the church for a Primary Easter egg hunt.



The girls had fun all day, they were just so excited to find all the little spots where the eggs were hiding. And then on Easter Sunday they wore some new dresses that I found. ADORABLE!! And Ashtyn even gave a talk in Primary about Easter. It was a great day for us to remember the Savior and all He has done for us.



Then on the 24th we celebrated Ashtyn's 5th birthday. We went to story time at the library and then went to lunch at dad's work where she got to open a present. We stopped at the park, by Dad's work, on the way home and the girls played for a little bit and then we headed home for some down time.
Then that night as soon as Dad got home Ashtyn opened the rest of her presents and we enjoyed her request for dinner which was hamburgers. Then we had a little party with her Grandmas and Grandpa and Uncles. (It was also her Uncle Brad's birthday so we did a little bit for him too). Then we all enjoyed Ashtyn's delicious Castle cake (also her request for this year) with ice cream. Even the ice cream was happy that it was Ashtyn's birthday(2nd pic, isn't that hilarious?). She has two of her favorite presents on in the third picture. A pink guitar and pink cowgirl boots. She has been the singing star at our house this past week and has almost worn her boots nonstop. It was a great day for her. And we just can't believe that we are already old enough to have a five year old. YIKES!!

Snow fun??

First of all we have had a winter full of more snow than I have seen in a while. And while it was here we enjoyed it. We went sledding, made snowmen, (in this picture it is actually a snow mom and her snow baby), made snow angels, and of course had some taste tests. And although we loved it at first we are tiring of it now that it should be acting like spring. Well, I should say Sam and I are tiring of it. We keep thinking that it is going to act like spring but it just isn't, and it has been seeming more and more like winter since March 20th, which was officially the first day of spring. The hardest part about it is that we got a glimpse of spring for about one week and it was wonderful. The girls had started riding bikes and I had taken them to the park one day for just a little while. We also took a little outing up to Long Lake and threw rocks in the lake. This picture is the cousins watching Uncle Cody throw the BIG rocks into the lake. It was so nice to start doing more things outside and now it is acting like winter all over again. We all feel like it is January. We are definitely ready for some spring like weather, although the girls have been excited during this last week, because almost everyday there has been surprises of snow. Two days in a row we even had all of the possible forms of weather. We had snow, sleet, hail, wind, and even some sunshine. Here the girls are hopefully enjoying their last tastes of winter.

How to win the Pinewood Derby, Period.

Our Elders Quorum had a Pinewood derby for all the guys in the group. The only rule was no open flame. Other than that , it was wide open to what ever you wanted to do for your car. It had to, of course, stay on the track long enough to cross the finish line, and was still subject to laws of physics, such as gravity, drag, etc.

I live in a ward with 3 brothers that are extremely talented in the art of crafting. They have a family metal shop that supports a good part of their family. Needless to say, they have every tool at their disposal, and during the weeks before the race, were talking about and planning their cars with each other. We also have a good number of other guys in the group that are somewhat skilled in such arts, and judging from their weekly EQ discussions, were actually spending time and resources on their cars.

I knew I had a formidable challenge, and up until the day or two before, was going to simply go to the race with the expectation of loosing. I would do a modest job on my car, with a modest design, and just hope for the best. I am not a competitive person. My high school coaches would get frustrated with me, because the fear of loosing what NOT a motivation for me, especially when the other team was trying so hard to win.

I toyed with several designs in my head, including: fan with motor, mouse trap, motor to axle, RC car modification, CO2 cartridges, and the like. Now remember that I have as my foes guys with endless tool resources, and a couple of them have more time on their hands at this time of year due to the weather.

Well, with some urging of my wife, I decided to take on this challenge with a little more thought, and spent an afternoon in the garage working. While I was out there, contemplating the different designs and what I would need for each, a thought came to mind to just make the thing heavy as a tank, and just go strictly with gravity power. I had a weight in my “project supply” bin that would fit pretty well on the car, and was definitely heavy enough. I was toying around with the idea of just sticking to gravity and admitting defeat against the other powered cars, when that light bulb went on.

Just like some martial arts, I need to make their strength their downfall, and use it against them. But how will I be able to do that? How can I just steal their speed or design, no matter what it is? One word came to mind: an ARM. I would just have a bar of some sort sticking out in front of their car, and then just put a piece of wire on my car out in front of that, and I will win, every time, no matter what.

So, here it is.

The arm lays on the track, and at the starting line, the other car has to line up behind my arm. I made it so I could pivot the arm to either side, depending on the side of track I was on, and put that weight on the back to make her stable.

I made no modifications to the block of “Pinewood,” and spend about 2 minutes putting the wheels on, straight out of the box. No graphite. No smoothing of the axle nails. No turning of the wheels on the lathe. No tuning so only 3 wheels touch the track. No tilting of the wheels so only the outside edge touches. No aerodynamic paint. No exact weigh in the day before.

#1 -Screw on the weight.

#2 -Screw on the brackets. I made them with a Skil saw and drill press.

#3 - Insert the branch from the back yard tree that is the pivot for the arm.

#4 - Drive nail in front side of arm, to assure I am in the lead.

#5 - Attach wheels.

#6 – Done.

Now, you will have to prepare yourself for some mocking and scorn, but you will be victorious. No way around it.

When I walked in and set my car on the table of all the cars, most of the guys sort of chuckled at the crudeness of the car, and then it would register… “Wait a minute…” I also heard a couple, “Oh yeah, I thought of that.”

My first race was against one of the brothers of this family. He had obviously spent considerable time on his car, as it had twin fan props mounted to twin electric motors with a rechargeable battery for power. He set his car down and then said, “I’m not even going to turn my car on.”

I said, “O.K.,” and won.

The entire night was changed from “Who has the fastest car?” to “Who can beat Sam’s car?”

It was a lot of fun. Now, go make your own car, and get to winning.

It is unabashed cheating, but is it no rules, or is it no rules?

Front View:

Rear View: