Explosive Fun on Father’s Day

First things first on Father’s Day…the presents!  Then Jasper has some hide and seek toy fun with his Grandpa’s gift bag.  Not to be outdone or left out, Delilah grabs her favorite bunny ball.

Earlier in the day, my Dad and I had heard of the “explosion” that mentos and diet coke create when mixed together.  With affirming glints in our eyes, he asked “You want to try that?”  And my answer, of course, was “Yes!”  We got online and checked out the masters of this experiment at EepyBird.com  These choreographed geysers are amazing!  So with materials in hand, a two-liter bottle of diet coke and a pack of mentos, we moved the party to the backyard.  We carefully set the bottle of coke in the center of the grass, held the mentos over the opening, and prepared to run.  We dropped the candy in and ran back, expecting a huge geyser.  To our disappointment, we got little more than a two or three foot fountain of coke. 

Determined to find out how to get one of those tall sprays that we’d seen, we went back to the experts at eepybird.com and found the instructions overlooked before.  The trick was to drill a hole in the top of the bottle cap to create a smaller opening.  Then we drilled small holes through five mentos and strung them on filament line, as instructed, and threaded it through the cap.  We returned to center stage in the backyard and I held the line of mentos in place as my Dad put the cap back on the coke bottle.  “Are we ready?”  “Ready!”  I released the line and we ran back, turning to look at the spray that my Dad judged to be about fifteen feet high.  We were ecstatic!

“Let’s do it again and film it!”  So off we went to drill and string together more mentos.  We gathered our materials and headed to the backyard one last time.  Camera in hand, I began filming, while my Dad held the line of mentos with one hand and twisted the top onto the coke bottle with the other.  However, there was a slight malfunction when he dropped the mentos in the coke before he had the cap on all the way.  I panicked and hit the button on the camera, causing it to stop recording.  Then my Dad said “Go!”  And I hit the record button again.  Even though we didn’t catch our best geyser on video, it was still loads of fun!  And maybe the best times are the ones that are just meant to be completely enjoyed in the moment anyway.   So here’s that last attempt (notice my extraordinary filming abilities):

My Mom, who had been watching safely from inside the house with the dogs, opened the window and said, “Well, you’re all out of coke now, time to come in,” as though we were children being called home at the end of a long day of play.  And maybe, for an instant, that’s exactly what we were.   Happy Father’s Day, Dad!  and Grandpa!  We love you!