Pine Wood Derby

In true Chatterley tradition we spent way longer on making the car look right, then on making the car fast... But Kyle loves his car and it did alright for itself. Not so fast as to be first but fast enough to win more than half the heats it was in...

Driver with his vehicle...


All lined up on the starting grid...


Wait it's over already?


Over the years one thing that I've noticed about pine wood derby's is, there are two types of dads... those who are their for their boys and those who are there in front of their boys. What I mean is, there are dads who take the race way too seriously and get a little too miffed when their boy plays with the car like he will do, so they hold the car, they take care of the car... it's like it's THEIR midlife crisis car not their SON'S pinewood derby car... you know who you are. I appreciate that James is NOT one of those dads... if Kyle or Ty before him, played with his car at or before the pinewood derby James would let them but remind them to be careful, he'd also let them handle it and place it on the track, you know like it was their race and not his... sorry just a pet peeve of mine.

Anyway we had a great time, although I think it'd be a lot more fun if the ward had it's own track and we could run some dad races, little brother races... heck maybe even a mom mini-van class...

And as far as the effort on building the car... well I'll say this, it's 4 different pieces of wood each individually cut, sanded and then glued together... followed by body putty (you know like the stuff they use at an auto body shop) then, sanding... sanding... sanding... until both father and son are tired of sanding. Then primer and more sanding... then finally the color goes one, I don't know how many coats with "wet" sanding in between. And because Kyle wanted a candy apple finish there was the candy coat that had to go on at "exactly" (according to James) four hours after the last coat of silver. When it was done it looked like a shiny red car... Why'd you put so much time into the silver if you were going to paint it red James? -crickets- and a dirty look from him is all I'm getting in response to that question...

Ryan's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Ryan. He turned 7 years old... Where has the time gone.


Ryan had his party at Peter Piper's Pizza (An Arizona local version of Chuck-E-Cheese) and he was able to make his own pie. A cheese only pizza, his current favorite (not that long ago he was all about the pepperoni pizza but now it's cheese only please...)



We did a party package. It included pizza, cake and ice-cream, and tokens for all the guests to burn in the arcade. It was a good time, and they were pretty accommodating when we had a few siblings stay who weren't technically invited, so not a bad deal. Although it did feel kind of strange as they took care of EVERYTHING... I guess I'm used to having to manage the whole thing...

Santa Picture

Here are the boys at the ward Christmas Party with Santa.

Marley Farm Thanksgiving

We were invited to have Thanksgiving Dinner (Wednesday night before T-Day) at Marley Farm this year. One of the sisters that I visit teach works at the farm and she was the one that invited us to come to the farm and enjoy the delicious food, petting zoo, pony rides, jump house and entertainment.. It was held on Wednesday evening and all of the people who work at Marley Farm come and bring guests. Marley Farm is a working farm with a petting zoo and some interesting animals -miniature bulls, camels, donkeys, llamas, deer and some others I'm forgetting I'm sure, among the regulars (goats, ducks, sheep). The kids were able to feed some of the animals in in the petting area. The younger two were also able to have a ride on the ponies there. Ty didn't want to, I think it might have had something to do with the fact that he did the horsemanship merit badge at scout camp over the summer and well a pony ride with someone else holding the reins didn't appeal to him... guess he's growing up...
Ryan enjoying his ride on the pony.

After the ride Kyle eyes started to itch, so we think he might have an allergy to horses like James does. :|

Ty feeding a deer.

The camel is trying to eat right out of the cup in Kyle's hands.

Ryan had to warm up to feeding the animals... he's a city boy... what can we say...

Tarwater Fall Festival

Today we got to carve pumpkins with the boys, then they displayed them as part of the schools fall festival (a fair to raise money for the school).

Here's Ryan with his jack-o-lantern

And here's Kyle with his jack-o-lantern

Halloween

The boys at Halloween. Can you guess who they are?

What's for dinner?

So on the way home from church we got the age old question from the kids... "What's for dinner?" we told them "Chicken pot pie" to which Ryan replies "I HATE PIE! I NEVER EAT PIE!" so I ask what do you want for dinner and Kyle says "Mac-n-Cheese". And altough that is a delicacy it's not one I particularly like -maybe it's an acquired taste I don't know. Anyway we say "nope" and we get the "ahh... why not?" Which we let hang in the air as it's just too tiring to go into that level of detail every time we have the "Mac-n-Cheese" as the main /only course for dinner discussion with Kyle and Ryan. So we get home and Ryan asks again "What's for dinner?" I decide to think outside the pastry crust and reply, "A chicken stew with vegetables and a cream based sauce served in individual mini pots with a fine flaky pastry topping" IE:

So we sit down and Ryan says... "hum that looks a like like pie" I said "yeah it kind of does." He then starts to eat and says, "I like this chicken stew with the flaky pastry topping".

So I guess it's all in the presentation...