Science fair

This year's science fair was doubly exciting because, for the first time, both kids got to participate! Plus, I somehow got roped into organizing the whole thing, which was huge and entirely more work than I anticipate, but that's a whole other story ...

Grant wanted to explore the different ways to put out a fire, and his hypothesis was that water would work best. He and Daddy worked very carefully together to test several methods, and they discovered that the fire extinguisher worked best. Grant wasn't super interested in typing up his results, but he enjoyed documenting their observations and giving his "comment" about each one. For the grill cover test, he said "The fire didn't go out all the way but went down to embers. Then when we lifted the grill cover, air got back in on the embers and the fire whooshed back to life!"

Hope, who has always done such a wonderful job with the science fair, decided to explore germs. She swabbed a cell phone, a school door handle, and the dog's mouth then put each kind of germ in a few conditions (dry, humid, dark, light, etc). Her big take away was that Annie's mouth is nastier than she realized, and she probably shouldn't let her lick our faces. But she does anyway because, "I just love her soooo much!"

Neither kid won any awards this year, which was a bummer for both of them. Hope was especially bummed, because she's won each of the previous three years. She was more worried that kids would ask if she was upset about not winning than she was about not winning - if that makes sense. But they both enjoyed the ride, and are already dreaming up things to do at next year's science fair!