Driving Lessons & Pinewood Derby Racing & Diamonds

When I was about 13 or 14, my dad put me behind the wheel of his truck for the first time & said I needed to start learning to drive. Now mind you, we lived in the middle of no where, so driving around in a pasture was not a big deal. I had ZERO chance of running into something or running over someone, so it was a good place to figure out the basics of driving. We only had standard transmission vehicles, too, so I figure if I had to start out driving a standard (which really means killing it every 6 feet for a long time!), it's best that I wasn't on a roadway to do it!

Today, my 12 1/2 year old got her first chance to do this. We went out to the lake on a whim to see how the level of the lake looked. We do this from time to time because during dry seasons, it's so low that you can see the bottoms of piers, boats sitting in mud on the dry ground, etc....and during heavy rain seasons, it's cool to see how much the water has risen. Anyway, while we were there, we were in this GIANT parking lot all by ourselves. There wasn't another soul around & I half jokingly said "Hey Savannah, want to drive?". Of course she wanted to! I got into the backseat & Larry did all the driving instruction. After slamming on the brakes the first couple of times, she got the hang of things & really did VERYYYYYYYY well. She made big circles around the parking lot for a long time with her little brother & sister making jokes in the backseat the whole time. Larry even had her drive in a straight line down a path of blacktop down the center of the parking lot to see if she could pulling off staying in a "lane". She did great! I was really proud of her, even if we were totally breaking the law by allowing a 12 yr old behind the wheel. Shhhh! :) Check out her mad driving skills!

Before the morning driving lesson, we went to Samuel's Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Race. This is his car. He called it The Patriot.

This is the group of Cub Scouts in his rank (Bear) that were racing a car. He's the 3rd one from the far end.

Each car was raced 4 times. In his four races, he got 3rd place twice & 4th place twice.

Tonight was the Pack meeting to hand out awards for this morning's race (speed, design, etc) but due to some unfortunate behavioral issues, he did not get to attend. Alas, he has a regular Scout meeting Monday night, so if he did get any awards, he will get them then.

As I mentioned in the end of my last post, I realized earlier tonight that one of the diamonds has fallen out of my wedding ring. I am sooooooo sad about this! I've had that ring on my finger for nearly 15 years now, so it feels so odd to take it off. The only times it has been off before was toward the tail-end of my first pregnancy when I was too swollen to wear it and once when we had it re-sized. I already feel naked without it! We decided it was best to take it off & not wear it until we can get it fixed. We are planning to do that for Valentine's Day. It appears that one of the little prongs that holds the diamond in is missing, so it has to have broken off & that's when the diamond fell out. Fortunately, it was one of the little diamonds on the side, not the big one in the middle, so it shouldn't cost a fortune to get it fixed....but still, it's my wedding ring! I'm just sick that it is messed up at all! 'Til it is fixed, it's locked away in our safe inside a ziploc baggie just in case any more diamonds decide to fall out! :(