Vacationland Weekend

July 31, 2006

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Living in vacationland is a good thing. Having not grown up here I appreciate so much the hot weather, the crystal clean lakes and many opportunities for summer beachside fun. But before the fun we must work. Yesterday was the work day, for all of us. Celine has wanted to set up a lemonade stand for some time. So early this past week we planned to have a stand this Saturday. We checked the weather and seeing it would be hot we bought the lemons. Saturday morning we rolled and squeezed lemons, added water and sugar, stirred and did a little taste testing. Sounds easy but with 3 kids all helping it took a bit of time. Then Celine had to make a sign and figure out what to charge. She was paying me for the lemons so she needed to determine the minimum amount she needed to sell to cover her costs. From there we figured out a fair price to charge. Lucky for her the customers were generous and paid more than she asked for (.50/cup) so she made a nice profit. Laurent, not wanting to be left out "Celine has all the good ideas" (his words) sold artwork. For just .05 customers could buy an original, one of kind drawing. He did well also, selling a couple pieces of art for .25/piece. Celine and Laurent are quite different in their selling approaches. Ã‡eline rarely spoke to her customers preferring her sign to do the talking. Laurent had no problem asking people to buy artwork. They were quite the troopers sitting out in hot, humid 80F/30C weather for 2.5 hours. Mommy and Daddy were the final customers of the day. I also bought the leftover lemonade from Celine (she paid for it afterall) for supper, at cost though. After all the selling was done we counted up the kid's earnings, took out tithe & set aside the rest for the bank. That endeavor, although the kid's initiative, took up a fair amount of mommy time but it was well worth it.

While all this was happening Damien was making trips to Home Depot with a friend's truck buying concrete blocks to build a bigger compost bin (The actual building will take place next weekend). Then mowing the lawn, then stripping paint off a wood door, cleaning the cat litter etc... We all worked hard in anticipation of a staff party today at Middle Range Pond.

Damien's office is in the Bates College Library even though his job isn't specifically library related. Each year a woman from the library has a private staff party at her home on the lake. We were so blessed to have been invited and enjoyed a fabulous day in and on the water. The kids swam for almost 7 hours straight, except to eat and go boating. Boating included kayaking and motorboating with a tube. The kids had such a wonderful time and as a parent it's so gratifying to see your kids enjoy themselves so much. Their swimming skills are improving greatly as well.

We came home a couple hours ago well fed and water logged. Now I'm planning our week which will include some gardening work - transplanting my raspberries to make room for the new compost bins, blueberry picking, swimming at our friend's pool, our weekly afternoon at the farm, an outdoor evening concert, water and pizza party at Bates and another weekend BBQ at a friend's camp on the lake.

Have I mentioned yet that I love summer in Maine???