1st Pinewood Derby

Corwin with his Cubmaster Bevin Judd.


Corwin with his Wolf Den!


Corwin racing! HE WON TWO TIMES.

Corwin so proud of his car!

So here's the story. I go to Den meeting in November and they hand out the Pinewood Derby cars. I am so excited that Corwin will be able to do this with his dad. What a fun project I think. I thought Ben would be so excited.
The next day I tell Ben about the car and all the excitement that I have, is completely vanished.
Ben is terrified. Thoughts flash through his mind about his childhood memories about Pinewood Derby years and he is not happy.(Something about putting the car in the over, the tires melting, the paint not drying, the car getting stuck on the middle of the track- DISASTER)
Luckily after Corwin put some ideas together, and I had a guy in our ward that is a wood shop teacher.Things started to look a little better. I pulled some strings and had Ben and Corwin meet Brother Barney at his shop. They had a great time and Ben's dreams were starting to come alive again.
They painted and sanded and really worked hard on this.
Corwin was so excited and so was Ben, until Corwin wanted to paint some flames on our Bronco Blue(in memory of Ian Johnson #41). I didn't feel comfortable painting and either did Corwin, so I went on the internet, found some pictures of flames printed them, cut them out and pasted them to the sides of the car. Ben was not happy. But after seeing the flames he wasn't so hurt.
Corwin was Happy and that was all that counted.
We then find out that the our ward doesn't race until 2:30. That is the same time Ben has to leave for work. We tried to work out another plan for Corwin to race at another time, but it never worked out.
So, after all was said and done. Ben had to leave before we started, so he didn't get to see Corwin race. Corwin won 2 races, which he was so proud of. Last, someone recognized Corwin's car as a Hot Wheels replica.
Ben's Pinewood Derby disaster days were over. We recovered with a great race and happy faces.
The car never stopped in the middle of the track and Corwin or any other boy did not receive the turtle award.
Congrats to Ben and Corwin!!! Great job.
PS Aiden can't wait to make his car. HE already has his design, but he doesn't get to race for 2 years.

Snow?

Here's our little snow I was talking about. This was the day after Christmas. I was so disappointed that it wasn't Christmas Day. There still wasn't enough for us to go play in it. It was still Snow!

Arizona Snowman!!

So, in Arizona we have very little snow if any. My nephew, Daren decided that we needed to be creative with all my tumbleweeds. I think she is beautiful!!!

Christmas Morning

OK! So this is really late in getting posted. I have slacked. So Merry Christmas, late!! My boys think that they look like candy canes. I think they are so CUTE!!!

Arizona Sledding!!!!

Poinsettia Bowl!

Here I am at the Bowl game. Go Boise State Broncos!!!
Right before we headed to the game, we looked online to see where we were sitting. Yes, I bought tickets on the TCU side, not knowing. I just want to go on the record that we weren't the only Bronco fans on that side, but we were out numbered and not in the spirit of BRONCO NATION!


Ben and I are taking a poll on the better picture. He likes the way the one on the top and I like how I look in the bottom picture. I am not picture/photoshop savvy so I can't cut him out of one and add it to the better picture of me. So you get both pictures.


Boise State warming up.
We were sorry to see Boise State lose, but proud of their efforts. 16/17 score's not bad.

We Got a Deal!!!

So, Ben and I decided to go to San Diego for the Poinsettia Bowl. I told him to look at Hotels.com for good rates on rooms. As we were looking we found the Sofia Hotel. It offered a nice place to stay for a great price. There were great reviews and the price was right so we made reservations.
Now you know that I always have a story. Things just can't go right. I had a feeling that there had to be a catch with the price.
1st thing. You have to book exclusively with the Hotel in order to get the complimentary breakfast. This doesn't make it complimentary because an average night on their website is $135 a night. We paid $60. So in actuality you pay for your breakfast.
Second, there is no parking. You have to pay for Valet Parking which is $28 a day.
When we got up to our room, we were joking that they must know that we paid only $60 so they were going to get their $ anyway.
Last, Ben decided to get on the internet to see what shops were around and we found out that they charge $10 A DAY to get on the internet.
I then said, just watch, you're going to turn on the TV and we are going to have to pay for that too. Luckily after Ben fiddled with the wires for awhile the TV did start working without us having to pay for that too!
So what was suppose to be a GREAT DEAL on Hotels.com ended up costing us a HOLE in our Pockets.
Now imagine what service we would have gotten if we paid the full price. Either all the above free or more money out of pocket. Who can afford to stay here?
Addition: Today we needed to get something out of our car. So we had Valet take us to where our car was parked in their garage. Ben says that our Suburban was the cheapest car in there.
We are going to ask for the Maserati to be brought to us when we leave! We had a laugh when we imagined us driving the Aveo to the hotel and having it Valet parked.