What a week!

What a week. I find myself saying that at the end of every week these days. Johnny is still gone down in Georgia and will be there for a lot longer. Meriahna did a volleyball camp this week as you can see in the action shot that Sydney took of her running around the gym. We barely made it through the four days, but her arms are finally healing from getting beaten with volleyballs.

This week was also my birthday. It is definitely hard to get used to birthdays as an adult. You find yourself counting your facebook posts, sad because they aren't nearly as numerous as your freshman year of college. But Johnny, his family, and my family did an excellent job of making me feel loved on my 23rd birthday.

The Adams always do balloons and some kind of cake for me. I lucked out this year because there's a new cupcake place in town, and Melissa brought me three cupcakes...which were promptly scarfed down by Austin and Meriahna. I managed to sneak one out and eat it. Heaven.

Silly Bandz, which I'm sure you know, are all the rage with the crazy kids these days. Sydney loves hers and photographs them often. Even my high schoolers had them. We went to the orthodontist this week, and yes, even the orthodontist had some to offer to Meriahna and Syd. A cowboy boot and a hot dog.

So later on in the week, Meriahna, Sydney, and I went to go get our nails done. The girls got manicures, and I got a pedicure. This smile never came off of Meriahna's face the whole time. She was very thankful, saying "Thank you Rachel! I'm so happy!" numerous times. It was nice to be thanked even though it wasn't my money!

The finished product. It came off about a day later because we went swimming, played with chalk, etc.

Next, the biggest little thing to hit Leawood since Town Center is Peach Wave. It's self serve fro-yo. I've gone with my fam and with the Adams. We LOVE it. Mitchell usually puts about six candy bars worth of candy on top of his yogurt. I usually follow that up with the classic, "You want some frozen yogurt with that candy bar?" Gets 'em every time....Ah I'm turning into my dad.

And to end the week on a strong note, we decided to have a lemonade stand. We went to the grocery store and got a whole bunch of lemons. I must not have communicated the fact that the lemons were indeed for the lemonade because when we got home, Sydney went straight to the pantry and got out the Crystal Light Lemon Drink mix.

Hard at work squeezing the lemons. The girls squeezed them all themselves. There was a lot of team work going on. Gotta love it.

Because of this picture, Meriahna had lemon pulp in her hair the rest of the day.

So here's how the lemonade stand went down. We made signs and named our stand, "The Lemon Tree." Meriahna and Sydney created the motto, Great Lemonade at a Great Price, or something along those lines. The girls piled into the wagon, and I dragged all of us up to the top of the hill where there would be the most cars. The wagon has gotten much heavier over the years. As the heat wore on and no one was stopping, Meriahna decided that we need a plan for how to get people to stop. The plan consisted of Meriahna going further down the street to act as a look out for cars. When she saw one, she would yell, "Wake up and smell the coffee!" to Sydney who would then start doing cartwheels down the sidewalk to get people to stop. It worked pretty well. Our first customer was a blonde girl named Taylor. Sydney is still convinced that it was Taylor Swift. "No seriously guys." Katie came to the stand, and when we told her about Taylor, she asked if Justin Bieber came by as well. Sydney just rolled her eyes like that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

Volleyball, birthday, and lemonade. Not a bad week. Johnny, I get to see you in six days!