A lesson in good sportsmanship

Today was Trinity's first time racing for AWANA's Float-A-Boat race. She was so excited to make a boat, and drove us nearly insane wanting to get started. But in typical Qtpies fashion, we waited until that last week to get started. Trinity sat down with her dad and drew and designed the boat she wanted, complete with a crown for a sail. Luckily for us we still had plastic Easter eggs, which make a perfect crown when cut down with a dremel. Trin drove us nuts wanting to go shopping for crown stickers, which we never found, but instead got sparkly paint pens and some heart and star jewels instead. She sanded and sanded and sanded some more to get a perfectly smooth boat. Then hounded Donnie through every coat of paint so she could start decorating. The boat turned out quite girly and princessy.


Through the years we have perfected our cars, but we've only ever made a boat one other time. So we made sure the boat wasn't top heavy and didn't tip, and hoped for the best. Crucial mistake: Donnie didn't teach Trinity how to BLOW the sail. Not good. She did little huffy, puffy blows in spite of our screaming "Blow HARDER!!!!" at her the whole race.

She had so much fun and was so excited to get a participation ribbon. She didn't care that she didn't win, she was happy to come in second on the side she was racing on. (even though it was last out of the 4 racing one of the heats) Look how proud she is of her ribbon!


And then she heard HER name called out for the FIRST PLACE trophy for best design! She ran over to get her trophy.

Look how she is holding the ribbon higher than the trophy, lol. She was just as happy with that as with the trophy.

Now, her parents, on the other hand, might need a lesson in sportsmanship. Not that we were poor sports or poor losers, but you can hear us screaming in the videos to blow harder. We even coached her between races on HOW to blow harder, but she didn't listen until the last seconds of the race, which she had already lost.

Do you know what we then did? Found out what the fastest boats sail was made of, started thinking of next years' sails, what went wrong and right for the other boats, and BOUGHT not one, but TWO more boat kits to practice on to get it right for next year.

Oh, yes, we did.

Here are Trin's two races.