When life gives you a lemon like diabetes, make lemonade and sell it for a service dog.

Looking cool and selling lemonade.

About three weeks ago I got a text from a friend to wish me good luck with a little presentation I was about to give at our local middle school about fundraising for Brady's dog. She also asked if I'd ever considered selling bracelets at one of our local high school football games.  Yes, Yes, Yes!!!  But I just didn't know who to talk to about doing that.  She said she would make some calls and let me know what she could come up with.

Later that day I got another call from her and she said she spoke with the principal at the high school and even though he doesn't normally let people sell things at the football games, he would let us do it and see how it goes.  Here's the kicker:  he has an older son with type 1 diabetes.  Here's the other kicker:  My friend would get all the signs ready and the table and tent, I just had to provide the bracelets, cups/straws, and lemonade......in less than 24 hours.  The bracelets weren't a problem but the rest of it kinda was.  So the next day I high tailed it to Wenatchee to make a Costco run to get all the supplies for the lemonade.  

After driving 50 min to Costco and then realizing I forgot Aaron's Costco card, and then pleading with the Costco employee at the service desk to let me have a pass (seriously Costco, it's not Air Force One)  I get the cups, straws, and lids I need and then ask three different people where the lemonade is.  I get the same answer, aisle 8 from all of them, but I can not find it.  Finally someone tells me that the lemonade is only sold in summer.  WTF!  Do people in Wenatchee not enjoy lemonade in the fall/winter time?  I think all the smoke was clouding their judgement.  So I go ahead and buy the cups and call my Mom who thankfully was in Ephrata to help me with all the chaos.  She picked the boys up from school for me and was at walmart getting dinner.  I asked her to buy 10 cans of frozen lemonade, half regular and half pink lemonade.   I made it to the field about an hour before the game and we mixed up all the lemonade in some large water coolers that a friend thankfully let us borrow.

The lemonade was a hit!  And so were the bracelets.  All the cute little teenage girls wanted one in each color and they also just had to have their pictures taken with Brady.  He was soaking up all the attention too.  It was awesome!  One kid about 10 or so was being really sweet to Brady as he was making his speech.  I don't think he could hear what Brady was saying though since it was pretty loud where we were at, but he bought some lemonade and went on his way.  The same kid came back around the 4th quarter and donated a little more money for some lemonade and when he handed me his change I said to him "back for more huh?"  and he said "yeah, I just feel so bad for the dog".  "what? do you think the dog has diabetes?" I said.  "Well yeah."  I tried really hard not to laugh and I told him that the dog didn't have diabetes, the kid did.  The dog would help the kid with the diabetes.  Awesome night, awesome people, awesome community.  Thanks again Michelle!