Six weeks in, and if you’d told us back in May that we’d be riding in the backs of trucks, chatting through doorbells, and reading about ourselves in the newspaper, we might have laughed you off the porch. And yet here we are — Team 7UP, slightly sunburnt, thoroughly seasoned, and somehow still finding new ways to be surprised by South Dakota.
Week six had all the ingredients we’ve come to expect from life on turf: long days that stretch out golden and endless, doors that test our nerve, and people who remind us — over and over — that kindness shows up in the most unexpected packages. But it also had a little something extra this week. Local fame. A newspaper feature. A dog with better footwork than most professional athletes. And a Sunday that taught us just as much as any doorstep conversation could.
Another Week, Another Set of Surprises
By now, the rhythm of our days is second nature — up early, out on turf, knock, smile, talk, listen, repeat, until the South Dakota sun finally dips low enough to send us home. But “routine” is a funny word for a job where absolutely nothing is routine. Every door is its own small adventure, and every conversation leaves its mark, whether it ends in a sale, a laugh, or just a genuine human moment on a stranger’s front step.
This week reminded us, once again, that growth doesn’t happen in one big dramatic leap. It happens in the small stuff — the doors we almost didn’t knock on, the conversations we didn’t expect to enjoy, the moments we’ll be telling stories about for years.
This Week’s Highlight Reel
Let’s start with our resident newspaper star: Parvin made it into the local paper this week, and we’ve decided Team 7UP is officially transitioning into local celebrities — making headlines for all the right reasons, thank you very much. Watch out, South Dakota; we’re famous now (in at least one zip code).
Matthias had a week that honestly sounds made up. He watched a man get completely “ankle broken” by his own dog mid-walk — the kind of wipeout that deserves a slow-motion replay. He rode standing in the back of a pickup truck like he was in a movie. A man he’d met weeks ago spotted him, stopped his car in the middle of the road just to say hello, and cheerfully caused a small traffic jam in the process. And in classic Southwestern fashion, a simple lemonade purchase from a young entrepreneur turned into a family dinner invitation the very next day. You really can’t make this stuff up.
Michael met a homeowner who was so committed to a comfortable conversation that she brought out a foldable chair just so she could sit while grilling him with questions about literally everything under the sun. After a thorough interrogation, her final verdict? Barnes & Noble has the best sales strategy in the business. Not the ending Michael expected, but certainly one he won’t forget. Michael, who had just spent ten minutes politely surviving this chair-side inquisition, was not about to go down like that. One glance at the actual numbers of families buying the books, and her confident stare cracked just slightly. Final score: Michael 1, Barnes & Noble 0.
Gabriel, meanwhile, discovered a whole new frontier in door-to-door sales: the Ring doorbell conversation. He sat comfortably on the porch, chatting away with a homeowner who never actually opened the door — pure 2026 sales technique. Later in the week, he watched the city’s mosquito-control truck roll through, trailing its thick cloud of insecticide, and dryly joked it gave off some seriously eerie vibes. Dark humor is just part of surviving the summer heat and the mosquitoes that come with it.
Lessons From the Doorstep
If there’s one thing every one of these stories has in common, it’s this: people will always surprise you. A dog can humble a grown man. A stranger can stop traffic just to say hi. A lemonade stand can turn into a dinner invite. We walk up to hundreds of doors, and every single one holds a tiny, unrepeatable story — we just have to be brave enough to knock.
7UP Spotlight
This week was also Mom’s Week, and we want to give a huge, heartfelt congratulations to Parvin, Gabriel, and Liisa for their outstanding results. You three made your moms proud this week, and honestly, you made all of us proud too.
But recognition isn’t just about numbers — it’s about who we are as a team. So here’s a little spotlight for every single one of us:
- Mari — steady, thoughtful, and always the calm in the storm when the week gets hard.
- Liisa — collector of gifts, hearts, and good stories, and a reminder that warmth opens doors.
- Luise — quietly resilient, showing up with the same determination every single day and a contagious laugh.
- Parvin — now officially newspaper-famous, and still humble about it.
- Matthias — our magnet for the unbelievable, turning ordinary days into main character energy.
- Gabriel — quick wit, quicker comebacks, and somehow always finding the funny side of a hard day.
- Michael — dependable, hardworking, and always ready with an “Do you wanna guess?” that echoes down the street.
A Sunday to Recharge
After a week like that, we did something a little different this Sunday: nothing. No road trips, no new towns, no adventures to chase. Just us, the house, and the pool. We floated, we laughed, we ordered food and ate it together, soaking in the simple joy of each other’s company.
These slower days matter just as much as the exciting ones. They’re the glue that holds a team together, the quiet recharge that gets us ready to knock on a hundred more doors next week.
Looking Ahead
As we close the book on week six, we’re already turning our attention to something a little different for the week ahead — and it has nothing to do with turf strategy or sales numbers. Our focus for next week is simple, but honestly harder than any door: talk to yourself like you talk to your best friend.
Anyone who’s spent a summer knocking on doors knows the voice in your head can get loud — and not always kind. After a slow morning or a string of “not interested”s, it’s easy to slip into self-criticism instead of self-support. So next week, we’re flipping the script. If a friend had a rough morning on turf, we wouldn’t tell them they’re failing — we’d remind them they’re doing something incredibly brave, that one hard hour doesn’t define the day, and that they should probably grab some water and shake it off. We’re going to try extending ourselves that same grace.
It sounds small, but we have a feeling this one might end up teaching us just as much as any doorstep ever has.
Onward and upward — Team 7UP.
SW Eesti 