Summertime Classic

I don't think there is anything that spells summertime in the life of a kid better than a good ole' lemonade stand. I myself have very fond memories of hosting a lemonade stand on our driveway, and the other childish business pursuits that were spawned by the success of the lemonade stand (such as cutting up strips of paper, coloring them and selling them door to door as 25cent bookmarks, or painting small pebbles and rocks with clear nail polish and selling them, because isn't a gem stone just a shiny rock?) So when my friend Amy mentioned doing a lemonade stand with my boys (her kids had done it with their neighborhood friends before and loved it) I was all for it! So we gathered at her house around the 5:00 rush, since she lives on a busy neighborhood intersection and let the kids go to work.

Here they are creating their signs- lots of creative genius involved here. Saige had all the words in just the right colors- "strawberry" in red, "lemonade" in a combo of green and pink, and "ice cold" written in blue. It was perfection. By the way, they sold strawberry lemonade, which was way better.

Here they are working hard for the money. My very favorite part was watching Jace when the cars would come by without stopping. He would hold up his sign nice and high and yell "ICE COLD LEMONAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaadddde" and as the car moved on, his sign would slowly drop along with the inflection on the word lemonade, leaving a dejected little boy in the dust. But he would perk right back up for the next one. Luckily they did have a few people stop.

Their first customer- one large glass of lemonade for daddy! He loved it, naturally.

A real customer...

One of the many passers by, avoiding eye contact with the sweet little children whose spirits they knew they were crushing. Note to self: ALWAYS keep change in the car so support the summertime lemonade stands!!!

And after about 1 hour of standing out in the heat, the kids each made about 4 dollars! Not too shabby, I think. But I have to give a shout out to the kind stranger in the BMW who had to pay with a $10 bill and let the kids keep the change. The kids owe the majority of their success to him. But in my opinion, $10 is a small price to pay for boosting kids spirits, good memories and a nice, sweet, ice cold glass of strawberry lemonade.

Good times!