The Amazing Race... kind of.

Casey bloggin' here. On the 2nd this August, Luke had a pack meeting wherein this months bragging rights were all based around the immortal SPACE DERBY! Yes it is a time where men take pride in their male offspring for work mostly done by their loving mothers who are the last to receive the credit taken by their sons. It is funny how scouting seems to take this shape when the awards and recognition are given.

But to her credit, Coralie whipped up a pretty cool rocket just days after we returned from our trip to Pocatello. She sanded it, glued it, and painted it silver (the EASY part). Luke relied on me (the HARD part) to supply ideas (the UNDER-APPRECIATED part) as to how to decorate it. But what to come up with? It needed to strike fear into the hearts of his opponents. So, I provided him the difficult-to-come-up-with, terrifying never-heard-of title of "The Silver Bullet" together with stickers of "Bruce the Shark" from that devilishly wicked Pixar horror "Finding Nemo" and words alongside the sleek shaft of the air propelled platinum painted rampart whose motto "E.T. Go Home" came inspired to me from a missile attack in "Monsters vs. Aliens." Luke also painted a suggested sharks grin and eyes to the tip of the rocket in a retro homage to the WWII Air Hawks. (In all honesty, Coralie did most of it.)

But aren't we proud!

Our boy, eying the competition.

I even cropped that photo. Can't you tell?

Luke is actually pretty active in the scouting program and we have been happy to see him do it. It is a lot of effort over work to get things done, but when it happens and Luke gets his awards, he sees the benefit. He gets patches, arrows, beads, belt loops, pins and extra curricular patches for participating in special activities. He is a good boy.

This was the first time our pack has ever done the space derby and so there were a lot of first time issues coming up. I had to wind the rubber bands about 150 times for it to carry the rocket the whole length. I chopped my knuckles 4 different times because I slipped off the propeller and stupidly tried to save it from winding down. OUCH!!! That smarts to say the least.

Check out the action.

Me placing the rocket. (Nice calves...)

And we're off; Sadie showing her support.

Pretty much by this time, since no one knew how much to wind their rockets, we just celebrated if the rocket made it to the other side. Luke's was the first to get there.

Can you tell?

In the end, I was chosen to give awards for style and show. Not an easy task when everyone needs one. So I gave Luke the award for "Most likely to kill Taylor Lautner on a full moon." Coralie continues to roll her eyes at me for that one. =P

But here he is getting the prestigious award.

Luke was so excited he lost his sandals showing off to the audience. Maybe next time he could keep'em on.