I Had No Idea!

Have any of you ever thought, "I should start a snow cone shack!" Well that very thought has crossed my mind recently and apparently Mom's and Dad's too. Mom came home from a bee meeting and said that the snow cone lady in fort smith asked if we would buy into her franchise. She wanted 20,000 $$$ and we would get... Recipes I guess. Not much else. We decided to look into starting one for ourselves.
We found a shack for sale in TX near where G-pa and Nana live and I started to look into the legal side of it. The city doesn't require a permit but only that we call on the day of opening to let them know. We have to register online to pay taxes which doesn't seem to hard... I think if the government wants me too pay taxes, then I shouldn't have to set it up. They should hand me a form that tells me everything I need to know and all I have to do is sign. But it doesn't happen that way. So I called the health department to see what I needed to do about them and guess what, there is a fee. Of course. 35$ a year. Not too bad but still an extra cost. And I had to fill out a report and a floor plan and schedule an inspection on the day of opening. Thats all the legal work. Register for taxes, call the city, pay some money, done. The shack we wanted sold which was kinda unfortunate cause it looked perfect. A good shack will cost about 14,000 plus a paint job and probably some little fixes.
Then Mom went to talk to the snow cone lady again to ask about how she got a spot in front of harps and how they get electric and water. They pay a rent of 500 $$$. A MONTH! Just to park in a parking lot. They have to pay their own electric bill with whatever place they are staying at and they bring in their own water. So we have a one time $14,000 payment for the shack, $500 or so a month for a place to park it which totals to $6000 a year, and a yearly fee to the health dep. for $35. Lot's of money that a snow cone stand in the great metropolis of Charleston probably can't make.
If we do it, it will probably be next year at the start of the cone season, and maybe we can buy a tiny strip of land from that cow pasture guy next to CV's.

Football and Honey Harvesting

Recently, most of my time has been consumed by football. I get up at 5:10 and leave at 5:30. Practice starts at six and I get done anytime from 7:30 to 12:00. Then I take Josh to practice and that usually takes an hour or two. It is kinda exhausting. But fun at the same time. Friday night I fell asleep at about 5:30pm and woke up at 8pm thinking I had missed the next days practice! We had our first event last night. It was a team scrimmage but a lot of people showed up to watch! I didn't think there would be very many but I was wrong! We didn't kick after touchdowns or for kickoffs like in a real game but after each "quarter" I kicked a few extra points. I got my helmet and pads last night too and let me tell you, that helmet can really throw you off! I missed like my first three and 1 more later on. I'll get used to it. I enjoy doing it.

Yesterday we also harvested our honey. SCARY! There were thousands of bees swarming everywhere and Mom barely had any smoke going! I didn't have any bee protection on so I was standing a good distance back when mom started carrying a heavy box of the hive toward the garage. I could tell she was having a hard time so I was like, "You need help?" She said yes and said I wouldn't get stung cause the bees were away from their hive. NOT TRUE! I was in fact carrying part of the hive and the bees promptly attacked me. I got stung once on the head. Josh and Jess also got stung on the head and Mr. Charles, who was there to help us, got stung through his jeans. 4 stings total. But you should see the honey! It's gonna be worth one sting. We got about 2 1/2 gallons. Not bad.

Crazy Summer

The past two weeks have been very busy.

Last week was church camp. We took a group of about 15 people to the Talihina Summit camp. There were ups and downs. The speaker and the band were great, nobody cried over not having their phone, and we won the spirit stick! On about day 4 we got to do the zip line! Lane got to do it and she really enjoyed it, she likes things like that. We went in order of who was most likely not to chicken out and who was best that week. Our pastor picked the lineup perfectly! A girl in the last group sat up there for about 20 minutes crying cause she was scared. Last year they just pushed her off, but this year she climbed down. I think climbing down would be more scary than ziplining down! Overall, it was a good camp. I want to be more theme oriented next year though and maybe do more camp service to get a shot at winning arney. (Arney is the big armadillo that the church with the most humble and servant-like attitude receives) It's not a real armadillo!

We watched Pride and Prejudice yesterday, that is a great movie! I'm usually not into love movies but that one is awesome!

Today was TKD testing. Jess tested for his black belt and the rest of us mid-termed for our second degree. For all of you that don't know what that means, Mid-terming is what you have to do to get second degree black belt. It's like testing for another higher belt rank to get to black belt except you don't get another belt. You have to "mid-term" 8 times before you can test for second. All of us passed! We were all really happy when Jess passed cause last time he didn't so he had to wait another three months to try again! I don't think he would have been able to take another failure. Nor I actually. We are having Spaghetti tonight to celebrate our great success!

The little guys are in my room playing legos right now. Lane is outside with Josh plucking a freshly killed chicken. I'll let you know how the whole chicken episode goes down in my next post. We are new at this and it isn't over. That poor chicken...

Update

Lane is home! I don't know if I mentioned that yet but I missed her so much I think it is worth while to mention it again. We had McFlurries at McDonalds to celebrate.

Lane and I are leaving for church camp next week, and I am a little more anxious about this one cause Meg wont be there... I'll know a little more about how things work though so I can be more help this time!

Josh and Jess are outside playing airsoft right now. It's neat watchin em.

Josh and I have been going to football workouts four mornings a week. It's pretty tough but its getting easier. I had to go to this one stupid thing though. It was a library signing day where all the players get in uniform and go to the library to sign autographs for kids like we are famous. STU-PID! 1 kid showed up... It'll probably double next year, maybe even triple!

We had friends from CO in town for the weekend and let me tell you it was good to see them! It's been a long time! We kicked footballs and played disc golf and showed them our church and talked. Fun times!
Dad got so many chiggers when we were playing disc golf. Hundreds! He hasn't slept much this week...

I guess I've put off posting for long enough. Here we go, get ready for some heart stopping... reading.

The 4th of July. I hope you had a wonderful one. Cause we certainly did!
We (everyone except Dad and Lane) went to Texas to see the family and to turtle race. Now let me tell you that I had no idea that turtle racing was so fun. I thought we would go, watch the turtles sit in their shells scared stiff and then go home. It was not to be. It was very fun! Our little tiny turtle Carl, got 4th (on the 4th of july!) and knocked out 12 turtles in the second round. Shelby didn't win any of her races and Phil just sat in his shell. But Carl was outstanding! I have a video posted on my facebook profile if you want to see a turtle race. He was the smallest turtle and as soon as he started to move, everyone went crazy. It was hilarious! Lots of fun.
I caught about 27 fish in Nana and Grandpa's pond and had a scrabble tournament with grandma. I lost the scrabble tourney. Did you know that Qat is a word? I didn't either. One of the many things you learn while at Grandmas house... And we watched fireworks. The little kids especially liked those, it was a pretty good show.

Football workouts started up this week and I am sore. Everywhere. But it is worth it, it's a good kind of sore. Most of the guys seem to be nice and the coach is great. Today I practiced kicking with Dad, I didn't do that great but I ended the day with a 45 yard field goal.

It's been a good week. Pray for Mom though, her RA is not doing well.

Super Fun Stuff

I have had a really good week. 

"How so?" Well, thanks for asking! 

On Thursday the kicker for the Oakland Raiders, Eddy Carmona, came to work on my kick for the football team. He was AMAZING! And very helpful. He came back the next day and was gonna come back on Saturday but couldn't cause his baby got sick. He was a major highlight of my week. 

On thursday we also went to the Alma water park. I love water parks. Mom hates water parks. 

But she went anyways. I went late with Dad cause we were practicing kicking with Eddy. 

We did all the slides, flipped of the diving board, climbed the rock wall, and got raisin hands. 

Mom didn't even get wet... 

Saturday, and Sunday were easy going days with some farm chores intermixed. 

Did I mention the AC went out? Well it did, and it is still not working. But, since we have a separate unit for the add on section of the house we can hang out in there. And sleep. 

I think someone will come soon to fix it. 

On Monday we did a major bee operation. We added two supers and a queen excluder and nobody got stung. 

We also did a light test of my board game. If you didn't know already, I am creating a game that is going too be a major hit. I kinda stole the idea form the online text based game called "TradeWars."

It is gonna be ultra fun. 

We figured out some problems and I think I know how to fix em. I'm going to have Meg make the logo  and design the board and pieces.  

School today and TKD later. Going to Texas next week!

Another Test

I know your getting tired of reading about all these test but I just took another big one. The Stanford 10 test. 

I had to take it before I did any workouts of practices with the football team. I feel good about it. 

Mrs. Wing administered the test because mom doesn't have the certification slip. We got to the library before it opened so we had time to talk before the test. I haven't seen Mrs. Wing in a long time so that was really nice. She even brought a pencil because I forgot mine. Yeah, can you believe that? I forgot my PENCIL for a TEST. Weird. I also forgot my calculator... 

For Fathers Day we got Dad a fancy leather guitar strap that we had been wanting to give him for a long time. Mrs. Marianne gave us a great deal on it! 

Today we did school, weeded the garden, and ate popcorn. Josh has a dentist appointment later on... poor guy. I do not like the going to the dentist. 

Tomorrow we are going to the Alma water park! We are all excited but I think Bird and Z are REALLY pumped up about it. Z loves the water and Bird loves doing anything out of the ordinary. 

There's today's update. I'll be sure to post about the water park.

Thanks for reading!