One of the big events of the reunion was a boxcar derby. Each of the kids selected a box and was turned loose with spray paint, regular paint, duct tape, paper plates, and any other materials they could cage from their aunt & uncle. They were to each make a car with a hole cut for legs to go through so they could run while wearing the car. All of the grandchildren adopted this project delightedly. They painted and created with fervor. Patches carefully painted his entire box bright blue and I helped him duct tape on some paper plate wheels. Gleek began painting her box orange, but got tired of merely painting before the job was done. She made multiple scratch off shapes, but none of them actually adorned the car. We put paper plates on for wheels, but before the event she requested that they be removed so that she could have a flying car. Link created his own car using green spray paint. The paper plate wheels were taped to the middle of the sides with an additonal wheel on the back for no apparent reason. On the front he had a single plastic cup as some sort of cyclops headlight. Boycousin1 went minimalist with just painting his box black. Girlcousin1 ended up with a car labelled “Supper” because she misspelled “super.” Girlcousin2 achieved a swirl of colors that would have been right at home in the 60’s. Boycousin2 carefully constructed a battle car. Boycousin3 created wings for his car. My brother the engineer actually stayed up until 1 am creating a multibox tow truck complete with towing hook in the back. So creativity was rampant and everyone was paint speckled and pleased.
Then came the racing. The cars raced around the track three times and had to make a pit stop each time. The first pit stop was to put on and take off a pair of socks. The second was to get faces sprayed and wiped. The third was to drink two cups full of water. All the kids ran delightedly although the race of little ones kind of petered out rather than actually finishing. Even the infant Girlcousin4 attached a car to her stroller and raced. We had a cameraman’s race where all the dads and uncles had to run. Keeping in mind my decision to swim rather than wade, I joined one race. During the race I alternated between carrying Patches-in-a-car and Gleek-in-a-car. The extra pounds and inches that Gleek has really made a difference there.
In the end everyone got a candy prize and all the kids were parked in their cars for a drive-in movie while we ordered pizza. Fun was had by all.