RA Derby Race

Noah is in 2nd grade here in our homeschool, but he would be in 1st grade according to his age, so we go with that to determine his Sunday school class and other activities at church. Now that he is in 1st grade at church this year, he has been able to attend RAs on Wednesday nights (RA means "Royal Ambassadors" in Southern Baptist lingo).

In RAs Noah learns about missionaries, memorizes scripture, and gets to participate in service projects. He's already earned a badge for helping collect food in the canned-food drive.

But his latest badge opportunity? Not much of a service project, per se...but oh, does it hit right on Noah's biggest love - CARS!

Tonight was the culmination of this project...but it started back several weeks ago.

Noah picked out his car...and then lovingly sanded it...and after picking out 4 paint colors at Wa*lmart...he lovingly painted it all by himself...

He painted it all by himself...but he had plenty of on-lookers...

And then tonight was the big race night at church. He had called Papa and Laoli and invited each of them himself. He was very excited...but also very nervous.

I'm actually surprised I caught this picture of him smiling...he didn't smile too much this evening.

Car racing is serious business!


This is very serious business...with a metal race track...and computerized system for determing who won and their exact race time (down to 1/10,000 of a second!).


This is Noah watching the first time his car raced.

He won that first race!

He didn't even smile...he just looked wide-eyed and dazed and walked back over to us. It was so cute!

Unfortunately, when his car advanced to the next round, he lost his next two races. And in a double-elimination race...well, that was all she wrote.

But Noah still got to bring home a trophy tonight.

His first trophy.

So he? Is a very happy boy tonight!