The first week of February

Since the second Saturday in January, Hannah has been playing volleyball with the city's Park & Recreation department. Some high school girls coach a group of 7-9 year olds and a group of 10-12 year olds in skill drills and skill-building games for an hour, then spend about 45 minutes playing a few games of volleyball.
She loves it. Surprisingly, the hardest part of the game for girls at her age is to know where the ball will land (so you can move toward it) and who should take the ball. After that is mastered, then it will be easier to perfect the bump, set & spike skills they've been working on.
Since the second week, the 10-12 year olds have taken 1 or 2 girls from the 7-9 year old group to play with them. (So each group has 5-6 players per team, instead of 4 or 7.) Each week, Hannah has been chosen to move up and play with the 10-12 year old girls. It's been so fun to see her play with a more mature group of players, and has pushed her to hustle, talk and hone her skills.

Serving up the ball in the 10-12 year old volleyball game.

At the end of January, we were doing final preparation on our Pinewood Derby Cars.
One of the biggest events of the year for a Cub Scout is the Pinewood Derby. The week before the derby was spent working graphite into the axles of the wheels, putting the wheels on, making sure our cars weighed EXACTLY 5 ounces, painting & finishing cars.

Weighing all our car pieces with Daddy before putting her Pinewood Derby Car together.

Finishing touches: rubbing decoration onto his Pinewood Derby Car with Mom

February 7th was the big day. We had weighed in & checked in cars the night before. Hannah entered the open division and came in EXACTLY 5 oz. Noah checked in and weighed 5.1 oz, so Dad helped him to take some weight off the car and weigh in perfectly at 5 oz.
Noah's car did well and came in 9th place overall in his den of 2nd graders. (He has a very large den, so 9th is right in the middle of the pack.) Pretty good for his first race! Then, Dad tried one tweak to his wheel and ran the car down the track a little bit later, and he went from 49 mph to 56 mph, which would have taken one of the top 3 spots in his den. He was proud of his car, and was VERY proud to have won the Best Cub Scout Themed car in the entire pack!

Best Cub Scout Theme car in his Cub Scout Pack

Hannah entered the open division with a car she decorated herself. Her white car with pink glittery paint was definitely the most unique, girly car of the entire day! She was quite proud of her car and got a lot of compliments on it. She, too, came in around the middle of the pack of open-division racers.

Hannah with her pink glittery car, complete with flowers and "bling" stickers

On our way home from the Pinewood Derby, we stopped at a friends' house to drop off our good friend Dylan. And, we stayed until Daddy came home and had supper at Dylan's house. It was a fun day with the Derby, capped off by an even MORE fun time at our family friends' house that evening.