A little drink idea!

I like drinking and eating pretty things. Colorful, fizzy, whatever...so my sisters and I have come up with this sparking strawberry lemonade drink. You can use a powder and a syrup (I bought some strawberry syrup from a local coffee shop last year when my older sister and I made this) or you can do things the hard way and squeeze your own lemons and make your own syrup (like my younger sister and I did this year). Mix all that stuff with some sparkling water and you have your beverage. :)

We squeezed 7 lemons and a whole bunch of strawberries to make a whole jar of the concentrated stuff.

To make the syrup chop your strawberries into small pieces and crush them with a fork.
Boil them until they release a lot of their juices and become syrup-y. The fruit itself should be very crushed and more of a pulp at this point.
It's totally okay to stop and eat some gluten-free cake while you're watching your strawberries boil.
Pour the strawberries over a strainer so you separate the pulpy stuff from the syrup. You will also want to strain your lemon juice to get rid of the bigger pulp and seeds.
Then add sugar until it's as sweet as you want it to be.
You will want to wait to add the sparkling water until you're ready to drink it to avoid having it go flat...so you can mix in your water and serve it right away (crazy straws make it more fun)...
Or put it in a jar and seal it and refrigerate it. I don't know how long it will last since I've never made or stored this stuff before, but it has lemons in it which should help to preserve it for at the very least a few days. If you made it for a get-together you could make it ahead of time so you don't have to worry about it the day of your party. You could also just add regular water for a simple lemonade. You could also make a single serving by pouring a little into a cup and adding water to it. It's not very fussy.
PS: Does this picture remind you of the Twilight cover at all? Sorry if it does, it was entirely unintentional. :)

Happy 4th of July!