Kickin' Your Can All Over The Place

In this life, you have to take your victories where you can find them, right? And celebrate them as such. This past weekend we saw a few small, if not sweet victories come our way.

For Cub Scout Pack Meeting this month, our troop held a Space Derby. Not quite as well known as the Pinewood Derby, this is the airborne equivalent. The scouts build (from a kit) a small cylinder rocket, paint it, wind up the rubber band connected to the propeller to provide the propulsion, and then let it rip across the suspended wire track. There is no slant, it is a level track, all jet power is provided by the unwinding rubber band turning the propeller.

Here's Jack with his (hastily) constructed rocket,

spraypainted a proper blue & gold a mere two hours before the event

And here's Jack with his first place ribbon,after his rocket won every race among
the (count em') three participants.
(we didn't combine with another troop for this event like we do for the Pinewood Derby, so the numbers were small)

Never seen a Space Derby you say? Here's a brief video of one of Jack's three winning runs:

(i know, i know, exciting, right? calm down!)

The next day Saturday was full of victories as well, some a bit more embarrassing than others.
First in the morning we took all the kids to watch Harriet's soccer team play and roundly beat the competition 4 -0. The bigger draw however, was the marketing blitz taking place on the field that day.

Folks from the California Cutie Company, a brand name for California grown clementine tangerines, were out in force, handing out Cuties and coupons, and running an inflatable booth which offered crafts for the kids:

But the biggest draw was the competition, complete with prizes.

There was a soccer goal covered with Cutie cut-outs, where participants could win a variety of prizes depending on which hole they were able to successfully kick the soccer ball through.


Prizes ranged from Cutie tattoos, to Cutie lip balm and soccer laces,
to the highly coveted Holy Grail of prizes,
a Cutie baseball cap or a Cutie t-shirt

Needless to say that during Harriet's game my boys spent most of their time waiting in the line for a chance to kick a winning Cutie goal:

Jed getting some good advice from the Cutie advisor
(the top left small Cutie goal hole was the coveted spot - the one that says "sweet"
click to enlarge photo for better detail)

Jack taking one of his many aims
(he really wanted a hat or t-shirt)

Henry's shot at stardom


Alas, none of my boys came away with more than a Cutie tattoo, none of them even
scored a lip balm or set of soccer laces.

However,

after their victory on the soccer field Harriet and some of her teammates hurried over to try their hand at the competitive goal kicking.

And here's who came away a t-shirt winner on her first try:
And not only did she get one goal in the high, small winning hole, on her second try (they got three per turn), she got the ball in again to win a cap! Her teammates were most impressed. Her brother, however, was mostly just jealous.

She is sharing the baseball hat with him.


(Jack's team also won their Little League game, the final score was 16 - 7, mostly due to the fact that the other team couldn't get into their pitching groove. Jack played third and first base and had some great plays, as well as a couple of pretty good hits to bring some teammates home. But really, how fun is it to cheer loudly on that 16th run, especially when it is walked in?)