Now THAT's a Happy Birthday

Oh my sweet husband. What a season he has had. You thought that welding a submarine door was a big deal? Yeah, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Some of the church leaders in our area really wanted to host a pinewood derby. Troy is part of the High Council in our stake, and thus helps with a lot of the planning for events, especially for the youth. Although this was technically going to be hosted by the primary leaders, they needed all the help they could get because they wanted to invite not just the little kids, but the youth as well. Oh yeah and any adults who wanted to join. And since Troy knows his way around a pinewood derby, and his services were in high demand.

There were three evenings in January and February meant for people to come and get help building their cars. Troy got a bench-top band saw and set up shop. He told me that for at least two hours each night he was bent over that saw cutting out car after car after car. It was a ton of work, but also kind of fun to see so many people in the neighborhood wanting to get involved and take part. The third evening of car-building had to be postponed due to a big snow storm that came crashing through, but they made up for it the night before the actual derby which was.....take a guess.....on Troy's Birthday! Hurray!

Here are Troy and Ben working their magic on the bandsaw. They put in so many hours of labor on these nights.

By time time Troy's birthday and the pinewood derby actually rolled around, the planning committee had had to do a bit of scrambling to put it all together. I don't think they had expected nearly as many people to get involved. Troy thinks he cut out at least 50 cars, and by the time the weigh-in came there were almost 100 cars entered. The man hired for the job of racing them all was not certain he could even get them all raced in one evening but he brought an extra track and made it happen. It's great that so many people wanted to take part. Also kind of challenging. Best part of the evening? Out of all those cars, the winner was the son of some of our dear friends who moved to Bountiful a few years ago. Troy taught Cullen everything he knew about the art of building pinewood derby cars and clearly he did his work well. Cute Caleb was ecstatic to take home the top prize.

 

As far as Troy's birthday went, he wasn't really in the mood for much celebrating, nor did he have time for it. I did try to do a little something - I got a funny "best dad ever" balloon in the form of a Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker balloon. Troy thought that was funny. I made him one of his favorite breakfasts - omelets and potatoes. I tried to take him out to lunch, but instead he went out with his buddy Rick which was such a good thing. We put his birthday present on hold - things were just too hectic to really enjoy celebrating. I did manage to get him a big slice of his favorite: tiramisu from Gourmandise Bakery. At the derby however the primary president made sure there was a big cake for Troy and everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. I was so glad they did. I wasn't even there! There wouldn't be much that would keep me away from Troy on his birthday but it also happened to be opening night of the play Emma was in.

So, happy birthday to my darling Troy. This is a photo of how his day ended - exhausted and snuggled up with his exhausted daughter. What a great heart Troy has.