Last Light at Gunsight

Lemonade Stand

Tennyson recently decided he wanted to embark on his first entrepreneurial adventure -- a lemonade stand.  Holding to Grandpa Ross's first rule of retail ("The business of retail is detail!), Tenny insisted on serving fresh-squeezed, homemade lemonade.  So Suzy took him to the store to buy about 20 pounds of lemons and about 25 pounds of sugar, and then we spent a Sunday evening squeezing, boiling, stirring and chilling.

The next day, Tennyson set up shop and waited for the money to roll in.

Business was pretty slow at first,

but Tenny was confident in his product and was sure the customers would find him because he had also adhered to Grandpa Ross's second rule of retail ("Location! Location! Location!").

And sure enough, the customers began showing up.

Before long, word had spread and the crowds were swarming Tenny's now-famous lemonade stand.  Tennyson passed cups of delicious, chilled lemonade as fast as he could,

collected payment,

and counted out the change.

He even dealt with the tougher customers in a polite and professional manner.

In the end, Tennyson made off with $6.85. (His parents suffered a net loss, though it was definitely worth it.)

Also, we really liked the lemonade, so we thought we would share the recipe for anyone needing an end-of-summer swig.  Enjoy!

Homemade Lemonade

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup boing water

Boil then add remaining ingredients

2 teaspoons zested lemon rind

1 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice

5 cups cold water

Chill 8 hours.  Strain out lemon rind (if desired). Garnish with lemon slices.

(Recipe courtesy of Karen Tait, Enterprise chef extraordinaire.)

Grand Teton National Park

View from the aptly-named Grand View Point.

These boys are sooo cute...

...together!

Tenny is such a good big brother, and he's always looking out for Taiters and helping him have fun.  Taiters is always following Tenny around and trying to imitate whatever he sees Tenny doing.  It makes us really happy that they love each other so much.

First Day of School

Tennyson has been asking us for many days, "Do I start school tomorrow?"  Well, tomorrow finally arrived and today was the big day.  Tennyson insisted on picking out his own outfit, and he went straight for the "rocker shirt."

It was mostly a big deal for his parents.  Allow us to describe the feeling that parents get when they drop off their child at Chinese immersion school for the first time:  "Oh crap!"  No, really.  When we walked in the door for the first time, suddenly all of these kind but completely Chinese teachers started speaking to him and us in Chinese (no English is allowed from day one), and we realized we had no idea what they were saying.  And then we realized Tennyson had no idea what they were saying.  And then we realized Tennyson would be spending the whole day with these people, and then five days a week for then next nine months, and then.....  YIKES!

But Tenny was just excited to be a big boy attending his big (and brand new) school, to have his very own locker, and to hang out with kids his age.  Daddy was reluctant to leave, Suzy cried (no really), and Tennyson didn't even notice we were leaving because he was too busy playing with one of his new teachers.

Thoughts after day one:  so far so good.  Tennyson spent most of the evening chasing us around the house with a red oven mitt, and every time he hit us with it yelling "hongse! hongse!," which apparently means "red" in Chinese.  We assume his homework wasn't to hit his parents with red objects, but there's really no way for us to find out.  Then when we asked Tenny what he learned in school today, he broke out in song:  "honkinisho pah pah," after which he added:  "or some silly Chinese song like that."

We really hope Tennyson keeps having fun and acting like this is no big deal - it's about the only thing keeping his parents from freaking out right now.

Operation Desert Storm

Taken just off I-15, somewhere near Scipio, UT.  I took the shot while Suzy fended off a crazy lady who was yelling at her because I had hopped a fence onto private property (to avoid getting the power lines in the picture).  It wasn't even her property, so Suzy told her to either go away or call the police.  Luckily she chose the former.  In the end, I took only pictures and left only footprints, so no harm no foul, right?  Also, we think the West is really, really gorgeous.