Luke's Lemonade

Way back in May, after my surprise party, Luke decided he wanted a lemonade stand with our leftover lemonade and cups. One of the few things I like about where we live is the relative lack of car traffic. Because we live at the back of a subdivision on a street that is bookended by two culdesacs, we don't get much traffic past here at all. I didn't want to go through the trouble of setting up a lemonade stand only to have Luke disappointed. I told him we would do one in August on the day of the town wide garage sale, when I knew we would have more car traffic than usual. August seemed an eternity away, yet here we are (sigh).

In my mind, a lemonade stand involved a table with a poster board sign. In Luke and Shane's mind, a lemonade stand involved a trip to Menard's, purchasing plywood, and digging out white and yellow paint that we'd used in the nursery and on the porch. We used my friend Leah's cricut to make letters for his sign and even though it wasn't what I envisioned, I have to say... it's one of the best lemonade signs I've ever seen.


Luke painted the white boards while Shane painted the yellow. Leah showed him how to use the cricut, so he picked out the colors and pressed all the buttons for the letters and numbers.

We set up bright and early (as you can tell, I'm using the term bright literally here) Saturday morning because you know how people are about garage sales! Luke was disappointed about the slow traffic at first, but I assured him that it would pick up soon.



I taught him to wave and smile at each car that drove past and it was funny to see people turn their heads, smile, then turn around in the driveway next to us and come back, because really? Who can resist a cute kid with a lemonade stand? I sure can't. His second customer of the day handed him a dollar and told him he didn't want any lemonade, he just wanted to wish him good luck at his lemonade stand. The best part of having a lemonade stand, I've learned, is that it really brings out the good in people.

Like I told Luke, traffic definitely picked up and he started to get lines. We had to refill and make more lemonade quickly for him. Despite the line, he wouldn't let us help him fill the cups and he always made sure they were filled the brim so people get their money's worth.



When it was all said and done, we shut up shop shortly after noon because Luke was starting to get hot and we were about out of lemonade. By then, Luke made $25! All we bought were lemons, as we had cups and ice leftover from Tommy's party so with very little put into it, I'd say his little lemonade stand did very well. Most of all? He had a good time and he's already planning for next summer. He'd like to expand his sales into hot dogs or cookies!