Awana Grand Prix

Awana hosted a Family Derby Night at church last Friday evening. Nolan and his Daddy had so much fun designing and building his race car. We chose a pre-cut body style since we were newbies at this. So all we had to do was paint it, hammer the tires in, and add a few bee bees for weight. 

 Of course, Nolan wanted to paint his car green- his favorite color. 

 I love the look of concentration on his face. 

 A few days later he added some black racing stripes. Daddy added some red lightening bolts and Nolan's initials to the car's body. (When Nolan is really focused and working hard, this is what he does with his lips- so precious! I never want to forget this face...I hope he always does it!)

 On race day, they worked together to hammer in the wheels. 

 And then we were ready to go! Since this was our first time at the Awana Grand Prix, we were just hoping that the car would make it across the finish line! But Nolan was confident that it would be the winner! Ha! 

 We had a potluck dinner, checked out other people's cars, and chatted with old and new friends. 

 Check out some of these cars! Pretty incredible! 

 You can tell that some people have done this before. They made fancy cars and knew just how to cut, build, and weigh their cars to get them to race FAST! 

 There were 40 some cars in Nolan's division. But his car got to race 4 times! 

There his car is in the red lane!

Below is some QUICK video footage of his car racing...we definitely weren't the fastest, but we crossed the finish line! Woo hoo! I think we finished 3rd in two heats and 4th in two heats. Nolan quickly realized that he was not the winner. We still had fun watching his car race, but he really just wanted to play with the car and zoom it around on the ground.

We called Nolan's car, "Green Lantern".  And he thought it was pretty funny when his car flew off the track just past the finish line. 

It was a late and chaotic night with our 3 kids and 50 others. But it was a fun start to a future family tradition. We learned a few things from our rookie race that we look forward to putting into place next year! 

But the best part of all was the look on this kid's face when he earned his ribbon! A blue ribbon! He thought he was a winner for sure...and in our eyes, he ALWAYS is!