Our first lemonade stand experience

I've always found lemonade stands for kids super cute and have wanted the kids to do it, but never actually thought much about it. But recently i read this funny article about it and decided the kids are probably at the right age to do it!

I pitched the idea to them and they seemed quite interested, though i think i was still more excited than them. I initially bought a tri-fold to make a store front but then i found this COOL stall thing at Ikea for some dirt cheap price and decided that made a much cuter lemonade stand than i can ever make.

So, after their naps, i made up some lemonade and Tyler made up some signs and we were off to sell lemonade!! I had given it some thought on the location and found the perfect intersection point of all possible paths in Trails community!! :) And since it was our first attempt, i decided to just give out free lemonade and put a tip jar for the kids.

Business was a little slow to start, so, i had to beg people via Facebook and text messages to come patronize the store. In the end, i told the kids to go approach people and wave to strangers driving by and by golly, they actually did it! They must be desperate to sell lemonade!! 

Anyways, we had quite a few people who stopped by and in about 1/2 hr, we had run out of lemonade. Woo hoo!! Success!! We packed up quite happily and headed home only to find some kids had tracked us down and wanted lemonade. I said i'll make some more and they will come back in a few mins. But they never showed. 

Then, we decided since it worked so well the first time, we'll go sell the rest off too! So, we pitched up our stall and sold a few more cups before a gust of wind blew over our stall and broke all our stuff. :( 

So, at the end of the day, the kids made $11.60+$1.76 and i lost $25!!!

All set up to sell Lemonade

Who can resist these cuties??

We have customers!!!

Bribed customers

Trying out the merchandise

Some initial waving

Taking it easy while waiting for customers

More aggressive waving

Cody wore his superman outfit for luck the 2nd time

The sad state of our stand after the wind gust

The kids seemed to have really enjoyed their lemonade stand experience and it was fun for me too!! :) Even when i ended up breaking all my stuff, but it's life lessons, eh??!

Anyways, here are some lessons:

1) Use plastic instead of glass

2) Put some weight to hold down the stall

3) Free lemonade with tip jar works great!!