To celebrate the dedication of our new ward building, a week of festivities was planned. It was a little much, in my opinion, as we were expected to help out in several different areas, but never asked if that was okay. sigh
Anyway, the biggest celebration was on Saturday when we had a pinewood derby and simultaneous carnival. The derby was advertised several times in the local paper and the cars were available to purchase at a kids clothing store in town. They also had the woodshop at the elementary school open on two different nights for people to come get help carving their cars and you could use their paints to decorate them. That was really fun, and the kids had a great time planning on what their cars would look like. Chris and Alexandra made their car look like a tube of mustard. Nick and Noah went with a Batmobile, and the girls had a rainbow/peace car complete with geode.
There was a huge turnout, including lots of people from the community. 
Just look at all those cars lined up waiting to be raced.
Two of our cars are on the bottom row, right side. Can you find them?
During all this hub-bub I was off in a classroom running a carnival game. They had told the Young Women we would need to supply 2 or 3 games, so we decided on a bowling game, and then a bean bag toss. I had been saving juice bottles for a month to use for the bowling game. But then it ended up that we had to do only the bean bag toss. Kind of a mess and the way it was handled made me not want to show up at all, but I swallowed my frustration, mostly:) and ran the game for most of the day. When the race officially started, I snuck out to watch for a bit, since no one was playing games during that time.
The cars all raced in several different heats, and at one point two of our cars were pitted against each other.
I honestly can’t remember which one won, which is probably a good thing. It took quite a while for all the first and second heats to be run. I mean, look at all the people who showed up to participate!
It was really exciting when our friend, Max ended up winning third place. We found out later that there was some spray people were using on their wheels to make them go faster. We did not use this spray, but will definitely be procuring some for next year.
Lunch was provided for a small fee, and the kids enjoyed their sausages very much.
Yes, she eats sausage now. But only this kind, no other. 🙂
Along with the carnival games and racing there were also places to do a craft and to get your face painted. Alexandra and Sophie took advantage.
Sophie is holding up a prize she won at the Wheel of Luck, as well. The kids had a fantastic time and hopefully it helped to spread lots of good will throughout the community.