Hobbytown Model Contest

This morning we ran over to Hobbytown to check out their model contest. I thought that the contest started at 10am, but when we got there at 10:30, there were barely any entries, so we decided to enter. We raced home and CP speed-built his first glue-together plastic model - a 1/72nd scale Corsair. Alex from next door brought over a Junkers Ju-88 bomber that he and his dad had worked on and was 90% complete. GP helped CP and Alex paint their models.

Alex's bomber had a billion teeny tiny parts that I could barely hold, much less cut them free of the sprues undamaged. We glued on most of the pieces, but skipped the super-tiny parts like the front radio antennas. We quickly put on a few decals (called "detals" by CP and "decoys" by Alex) and then raced over to hobbytown to enter by 1:00 pm.

I expected to see a lot more models at hobbytown than there were, but the quality of those there made up for quantity. There were several planes that were detailed down to the seatbelt stiching and instrument panel gages. I knew we didn't have a chance, but I was promoting the contest as a good family activity and a fun way for the kids to expand their obsession with WW-II planes.
Alex had to leave for his piano lesson, but we stuck around to watch the judging. During our wait, GP exploded a squishy juice ball all over himself with bright pink juice. He cried and cried because I had told him the entire way to the store that morning that he (and the others) were to touch NOTHING in the store. We waited and waited and finally went home to recharge with a snack.

We returned to Hobbytown at 3:00, thinking the contest was over, to collect our planes. Wrong. The judge was still judging. Finally at 3:30 he started laying out ribbons. All day we had been coaching the overly confident boys and telling them that they probably would not win, as they were up against some nice models by 15-year olds in the Junior category.

We watched the judge place a red 2nd place ribbon next to Alex's bomber. He was ecstatic! CP was happy for him, until he realized that there was no ribbon next to his Corsair. After all the 2nd place ribbons, the judge started with the 1st place ribbons. We watched in awe as he put one next to CP's plane. I was so happy for CP! Now Alex was bummed that he didn't win a blue ribbon. I was just fired up that they both got ribbons. The judge had a big stack of ribbons and split the junior category into cars and planes. Very niiice. He also split the adult planes into plastic and balsa, which gave me a 1st place ribbon as the only entry in the balsa category with my Me-109! We entered 3 planes and came home with 3 ribbons!

What a day! It's now 8:30 pm and the boys are still playing out some dogfight over the Pacific which will resume promptly at 6:00 am tomorrow morning.