The Best Lemonade Stand in Town

With a forecast looking like this lately...

100°

there's no two ways around the fact that
it's about as hot as hot gets.

It's the kind of weather that makes you want to hang out all day at the pool,
Or stay indoors where the AC is cool,
Or just lay around all day while you do nothing but fan yourself and eat bonbons.
(haha!  wouldn't that be nice?)

But if you're 11-year-old Emma and her friend, Elena,
Instead you'll beg to go outside and sit in the hot sun
for hours at a time

While you sell cold, refreshing drinks to other people...
and then not even keep any of the money for yourself. 

They spent hours and hours in preparation,
baking and decorating cupcakes,
buying supplies with their own money,
making a tri-fold brochure telling about their cause,
and lovingly creating signs...

Emma put her sister to work
and paid her in all the cold lemonade she could drink...

If you notice that their lemonade stand

seems to be lacking in some of the more traditional supplies,

Let it be known that a couple of years ago,

Emma and Elena came up with the most revolutionary idea

to hit lemonade stands in the 21st century.

Instead of pitchers of lemonade

that you have to protect from bugs and leaves

And replacing cups that tend to blow away in the wind,

they use water bottles that stay cold in the cooler

and add little packets of Crystal Light

in whatever flavor their customers choose. 

Their customers love the no-mess, car-friendly lemonade
and I love the fact that there's no waste.
We just take the leftover bottles home
and use them when the water-treatment plants lose power
in a giant storm (that we got a little too up close and personal with).

They learned to make up a bunch of the plain lemonade in advance
so they could hand them quickly to all the people who drove by in their cars
and didn't want to park.

They were a little shier about yelling to passing cars
than they had been in past years
but it did not stop them from making the afternoon
a smashing success!

So how did they do?

$270
all to CureSearch
one of the best childhood cancer research charities out there. 

All to honor her brother, Spencer.


*********************************

And now she wants to do it all again tomorrow.

Lemonade Stand at our house
Ice cold crystal light lemonade-- $1
Fresh, homemade cupcakes (by Cami and Emma)-- $2
July 4, 2012
3-6pm