Super Saturday!

I had a pretty busy day on Saturday. First of all, our ward is participating in a 3-stake production of Savior of the World, and I get to participate as part of the chorus. The performances are not until May 8-9, but I have practice every Saturday morning from 9-11:30.

After choir practice (which Sarah loves, because she gets to go play in the nursery with all the other kids!) it was time to get ready for the Pinewood Derby. Ian was able to convince the Elder's Quorum president that one of the activities should be an Elder's Quorum sponsored Ward Pinewood Derby.

Ian has really been looking forward to this event. He really enjoys making Pinewood Derby cars that look like current model cars. When I was in Cub Scouts, he made a very good looking Ford Mustang. This time, he felt he needed to step up his game, so he made this:

It is modeled after the Toyota GT-1. He calls it his Toyota GT-1/2. Ian got the award for the most realistic. I thought about trying to make a derby car that looked like a real car, but decided not to. I came up with this:

I had a lot of fun making it. I got to cut it out on a scroll saw and sand it and paint it and everything. I only had help putting the wheels on.

For the racing, we had single elimination rounds. This means that in the first round each car raced 3 times against the same two cars, alternating the lanes in the track. Unfortunately, both Ian's and my cars came in second place in the heats. That meant that we didn't get to go on to the second round. We were sad.

We were able to race our cars together between round 1 and round 2 (after we were eliminated). Guess who won. Was it Ian? Nope! I did! See-- Here is the evidence:
My car is in lane 1- on the far right. Ian's car is in the middle, and Ian's Dad's car is trailing. The Derby was a lot of fun. At the end of the activity, it was announced that it would become an annual event, but that next year, everyone would have to build a new car for the race-- no repeat cars. I think half of the cars that raced on Saturday had been built for previous derbies.

After the derby, it was time to rush home so that Grandma and Grandpa could watch the kids while Ian and I went to a Jazz game. About a month ago, Ian's work awarded him for his excellent work by giving him 2 tickets to the game. Not only that, we also got to go out on the court before the game to welcome the players onto the court before their warmup. This is the view of the court as we waited under the stands to form up into our lines.
At 18 minutes before game time, we formed up into our two lines and waited for the players to come out, so we could take pictures of them and give them high fives. This is the one picture we got that wasn't blurry.
Sadly, I still don't know his name. I think I can only recognize one of the Jazz players, and he didn't come out on the court at that time. After the high-fives, it was time to find our seats. We sat up near the top. Here is a picture from the court looking up towards our seats. If you look carefully in the upper lefthand side, you can see a couple gray dots that are near where we were sitting.
It was really weird sitting up there. It took a little getting used to. Despite being so far up, it felt like we were on top of the game. It gave me a bit of vertigo. This is what it looked like from our seats.
But we could zoom in on the action. See:
The game was a lot of fun. It was the first NBA game I have ever been to. The Jazz were playing the Golden State Warriors. Unfortunately, the Warriors played a better game than the Jazz. I think there was an average of a 15 point spread for most of the second half. The Jazz rallied a little in the last7-8 minutes and it got really exciting, but then time ran out on them, and they lost 118-108.

We thought about leaving early to avoid traffic (and because we didn't think the Jazz would be able to come back from their point deficit), but we stayed because we also had the opportunity to go down on the court after the game and play some ball.

Here is Ian posing for a picture.
I kept tying to get some action shots of him, but they turned down the lights, and the rest of the shots turned out blurry. It was a lot of fun, and I even made a few baskets, myself. Ian made a lot more, and while all my shots were made from close to the basket, Ian made some 3-pointers. I also had to attempt a Granny Shot. :)

All in all, it was a great day.