I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

We've had some fun happenings in our family over the past several days. Christopher's scout troop held their annual Blue and Gold Banquet. The theme was "Chinese New Year." We ate some rice Chinese food and watched the boys display some of their more interesting projects. Christopher received his Bear badge and moved up to the Webelos level. Way to go, CV!




On Saturday, we celebrated Emily's 12th birthday with family and friends. We had a fun pizza party at Cici's pizza. It was a great time eating pizza together, laughing and opening some neat presents. Emily's cousin, Morgan, even made her a bracelet all by herself. Saturday night, Anna, Tony, Lucy, Jodi, Aaron, Jamison and Gavin came over to celebrate. We had fun snacks and played Apples to Apples. Emily was allowed to play with the adults for the first time and she enjoyed it. We learned that Jodi's very favorite swear word is "groin." As usual, we had a hilarious time.

Emily and her friend, Taylor

Emily loving the bracelet that Morgan made her.

Cameron, Cici's #1 Fan!

Aunt Jamie, Emily and Morgan

Cameron and Tyler

That's not Anna and Tony! Everyone wants to hold Little Lucy!

I've had several inquiries as to the baby countdown posted on my blog this weekend. Yes, I am expecting baby #6 due September 20. It sounds really stupid to say we were surprised by the news of this newest Vos. But we were. I guess when items are 99.9% effective, you have to remember the .1% non-effective chance is still out there. "So you're telling me there's a chance." Even though we were surprised, we couldn't be happier to have a new child to love. I have been feeling various levels of nausea and exhausted various levels of tiredness over the last few months. I have been to my midwife and everything looks great. I even got a picture of the baby, which looks a lot like a Sour Patch Kid. I am affectionately calling it, "SPK." I am looking forward to finding out if we are having a Mitchell or an Elizabeth (Lizzie). The children were all thrilled to find out they will be welcoming a new sibling. Emily is keeping all appendages crossed in hopes of a sister. Christopher shed tears at the news and gave me the biggest hug ever. Calvin and Spencer jumped around and yelled. Cameron is pretty much oblivious. This baby is going to be very much loved.

We're hoping it's lime!

He did WHAT in his cup?

The sight of the little black box every year makes me shudder a little. "Cub Scout Grand Prix Pinewood Derby Kit." Oh no, not again, I think, another Pinewood Derby. I don't love the Pinewood Derby for several reasons. First of all, no one in our house is engineeringly inclined. Designing a winning car is not a Vos strong point. Marketing the car, buying a winning car on eBay, writing a story about the car; all of these we could do very well. Designing the car, not so much. Second of all, does the scout in the house actually "REALLY" make the car? I wish I could say, yes he does; he does it all. But in reality, at our house, he helps. Mom and Dad do the car. Actually, the first year he was in scouts Mom did the nagging, Uncle Tony did the designing and Dad did the painting. Last year, Mom did the nagging and Dad did the rest. This year, Mom started out nagging but ended up doing some finishing and painting and Dad did the rest. Christopher helps sand, does some painting, chooses the theme and colors, helps put on the weights, etc... The first two years, we had losing cars. They were slower than slow. We didn't know much about weights and pins and sanding the burrs and dry graphite. This year we did some investigating. Chris watched a video on youTube about how to make a winning car. I sought the advice of a local hardware man and we got some very helpful input from a former home teacher. This year we took off a lot of the wood and made a very thin car and then at the advice of Bro. Dalebout, we put as much weight as we could near the rear axle. We got the pins ground and polished by Christopher's Grammy's jeweler. All of our hard work this year paid off because Christopher's car, #59 "The Boss" came in 3rd in his den. The attendance at the derby this year included all three wards that meet at our building, so 3rd was nothing to sneeze at. He was pretty excited and we were too. Chris and I were just praying that his car wouldn't be last. It was gratifying to see his happy face at the end of the night.

I was just going to type these words, "Thankfully we only have two more years of derbys," when I realized that I have 3 more sons to be scouts. So technically I guess at the minimum, we have 17 more derby cars to make. This doesn't even include any other sons we might have in the future. 17 more cars. The thought makes me shudder.