Our family has been active in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts for 6 or 7 years.  We build Pine Wood Derby cars every year and have had a blast doing it.  If you have seen the movie "Down and Derby" you have an idea what our house is like around Pine Wood Derby time (though I will admit not as bad).  After all those years of practice, we have got Derby car building almost down to a science.  So when Little Brother brought home the kit for the Rain Gutter Regatta boat I figured we would be fine.  It is just like building a Derby car that floats right???  WRONG!!!!  It is very different.  I found this out after I opened the box and after DH, resident carpenter, engineer, general boat person, had left for 2 days (did I mention the Regatta is tommorow (Sunday) afternoon?).  So boat building fell to me.  I decided that we didn't have time to paint the boat since paint takes too long to dry.  So I took permanent marker and colored the boat the color we wanted it.  This of course is after driving a 50+ mile round trip to the Scout store to get the pirate stickers so that the boat could look like the one on the box.  

I colored the little balsa wood block and realized that it sucked up the ink very quickly.  Would it suck up the water just as quick?  So I called our local hardware store and yup, not sealing the boat was going to cause our boat to be a submarine.  So I ended up getting some shelac and redoing the "paint job".  Tomorrow morning, while I am trying to get ready for church, I am also going to be glueing and finishing the boat.  Never a dull moment in the life of a parent