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on saturday evening Kylie and Parker were playing outside when they came up with an idea. I’ll take you back to the conversation…

Kylie: Let’s do a lemonade stand.

Parker: ok!

Kylie: We’ll need a table, lemonade, a sign, and a money cup.

Parker: Let’s make it free lemonade!

Kylie: Yeah!

Parker: And we’ll give people money!

Kylie: yeah!

…so they made themselves a sign, and away they went. I had to get a picture.

It was so stinkin’ funny listening to them come up with the idea. Erica wasn’t home, but even though i was by myself I was still laughing out loud. Oh the innocence of my adorable children.

Here’s the funny thing though: despite the sign, their first two customers paid for the lemonade. The girl across the street paid 3 cents for a cup and our neighbor Jeff paid “an Abraham Lincoln”, as Parker put it. Apparently Parker tried to give him money and he said, “No, you don’t pay me, I pay you.” All in all they had 5 or 6 customers and made a few bucks.

Was it the superb advertising, the gimmicky promotion, or their overall cuteness that made them money? I don’t know, but there’s got to be a marketing lesson in there somewhere.

Where’s Seth Godin when you need him?

The next few days feature a bunch of opening days in our household.

On saturday, Parker’s teeball team, the muckdogs the rivercats the rockhounds, (yeah this is their third name due to uniform issues) open up the season against the Scrappers at 10:30am at Paradise Park. There’s only two tee-ball teams in the league, so every game will be a battle between the Rockhounds and the Scrappers. Should be some bad blood come June.

On Saturday afternoon the Softball League I am the President of opens up another season with an afternoon triple header. I’ll be there collecting rosters, handing out softballs, kissing babies, and enjoying the sounds of the game.

On Monday night my softball team opens up the season, the first of our 20 games. I had a down year at the plate last year  - .400, 18 R, 19 RBI, in 18 games - so I’m hoping to bring those numbers up. Last year was my 6th year playing modified pitch softball, and the first year I didn’t hit a single home run (I hit 6 Homers in 2004, my career best). I’m hoping the weight program I’ve been consistent with since December helps with that (though let it be known I haven’t been lifting weights solely for softball…just hoping it is a side benefit).

If you’re wondering what my career numbers are, and I know you are, in 109 Games Played I’m batting .462 with 138 runs, 119 rbi, 28 2B, 24 3B, 10 HR, 22 BB, 12 K, a .751 SLG, and a .482 OBP.

My buddy Than’s sister spent the last few months in Africa, wrote about it upon returning, and has a piece on Relevant Magazine’s website. Very Cool. You can read it here.

Good job Aly!

I’ve got a tiny excerpt from my book-in-progress up as an article on the front page of Burnside this week. It’s called Kicking and Screaming and it’s a story I’ve blogged before, so it might be familiar to some of you in a less-polished form. It’s a quick read, so check it out and leave me a comment over there if you like it.

Thanks…