Week in Review: Minions, Mopeds, Microscopes, 'Merica

It's a short work week for me because of the July 4th holiday and I'm taking Friday off because going back to work on a summer Friday after a holiday just seems cruel.  So here's what happened this half-a-week around here.

We got a new waffle maker!  Now we have two waffle makers and can make cones twice as fast, which is great because they are a big seller (and so delicious).  I had no clue how expensive these babies are, but if you guessed just over $1000 you would be correct.

Because Despicable Me 4 is coming out this week, I used my *free* Canva skills and created this for The Ice Cream Cottage:

I also ordered these cute stickers from Etsy to put on the frappe cups:

"Our Customers are One in a Minion!"

Can you see the minions taking over the shop?

And if you think it's hard to constantly be thinking about creating and accounting for the shop plus work my own full-time job plus make sure the little kids are cared for plus make dinner every night plus walk the dog plus clean the house and do the laundry plus try to have some semblance of summer fun - you would be correct.  Hence my bad mood earlier this week.  Also PMS, which at my age is just a stupid thing.  Like really Lord, this old thing again?  Sending the kids to camps next week will help my mental burden/guilt a lot and we will have fun on this long weekend, by hook or by crook.  Fireworks and cookouts and parades and beach trips are on the agenda.

My older children however, have no problem having fun with friends and girlfriends and enjoying the summer.  Work hard, play hard!

Andrew and Darian went to Block Island for the day where they beached, rode mopeds, ate out and sent me photo updates (thanks Darian!)  They saw Despicable Me 4 on opening night as well.  Andrew's also working on his science courses online.

Moped Lesson

Eamon has been playing a lot of golf with his cousin and working out three mornings a week with the soccer team and hanging out with his girlfriend Ellie, whom he let buzz his hair!!

Maggie has been babysitting, taking long bike rides, waiting for the call to tell her when her driving test is scheduled and attending open volleyball practices. 

JP has been working as a medical documentationist full-time but goes for walks with a friend most evenings and has his girlfriend Grace coming up from Maryland to visit for the holiday weekend, which he's very excited about.  One day we were able to have lunch together:

We had a big branch fall in our yard and had to get that cleaned up plus some other trees trimmed while the guys and equipment were here.  Our new trampoline got slightly damaged (net only), but thankfully nobody was out in the yard when this fell.

After Brendan served his first Sunday Mass, we went out to eat and he got two Mickey Mouse pancakes that he couldn't finish - they were huge!

At one of their track practices, Phil taught me how to play pickleball on the court next to the track and I think we've discovered our future sport:

I just realized I am wearing red, white and blue!  I hope you all have a long holiday-patriotic celebrating-fun yet relaxing kind of weekend!  Happy 4th!