Welcome Home...Now Get Crackin' on the Science Fair Project

It's a four day weekend in the military. Wes took a pass and was able to come home for a couple of days. He picked a great weekend to come home, too, because it's science fair time and Evan needed to get started on his Cleat Sack project. I think there was a moment when Wes thought about reneging on his promise to come home when I mentioned science fair and Evan in the same sentence, but the lure of a home cooked meal must have been stronger. He decided to come home anyway.

We didn't get off to a good start with the experiment. The constant beeping of a code language on the newly purchased walkie talkies was pulsating through the house. A game of night tag was in the making, and we, the worst parents in the world, had Evan in the dining room constructing cleat sacks and debating the powers of air fresheners. Clearly there were better things to be done. However, I think we crossed some imaginary line in our ten year old's mind and hit our limit when Wes decided three Cleat Sacks weren't enough and we needed a fourth Cleat Sack labeled control. Evan started crying. Bad words were spoken or yelled, depending on your definition of extreme decibel levels. We even had several episodes of glue-gone-wild on the precious display board.We went from bad to worse when I found Evan gluing crooked pictures on the said precious display board;  my OCD went full throttle and every boy was banned from the room.

After a couple of drinks, as evident in the below photo, we were all smiling again.

We are now in the data collection process. Keagan's job of smelling stinky cleats and rating their odor is in full swing. I am,thankfully,not needed until it is time to add the data to the display board. After all, it must be glued just so.