Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Island Creamery

Sweet Daughter loves ice cream. It's her favorite thing to eat, so when she earns a "good behavior" report card*, we go out for ice cream.

Last school year, she saved up every single trip for when we went to Chincoteague, specifically for Island Creamery.

The first night she tried their Oreo ice cream. It was a hit. I had Snickers Cheesecake.


 
 
Day two: SD went with the tried and true Oreo. I went with Java Jolt sundae with hot fudge in a waffle bowl. This was "ice cream for dinner" night. Don't ask, it wasn't my idea.
 
 
Day three: They were out of Oreo! (HORRORS!) So SD went with vanilla and rainbow sprinkles. I went with Pony Tracks (fudge and peanut butter, and mini peanut butter cups).
 
 
Day four: Still out of Oreo, so again with the vanilla/sprinkles combo for SD, and I had Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream.
 
 
Last day? Oreo was back! YAY! And I had Iced Nirvana. I believe this is espresso ice cream with fudge and chocolate chips.
 
 
Yes. Four report cards and five trips. If we'd been there six days, there would have been six trips. You have your traditions, we have ours.
 
 
*As I've told SD, this is not a "bribe" or extortion payment. I expect her to behave well at school. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the effort, and we can't go out and recognize the fact that she's a pretty darn good kid.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Summer

I can’t believe school has only been out for a month. Sweet Daughter and I had the opportunity to join my sister, most of her grandchildren (and a daughter-in-law!) in Chincoteague at the end of June. This is getting to be an annual event, and is probably the thing we look forward to most. SD just told me she enjoys it more than Christmas.

Check-in was on a Sunday afternoon, so we hied ourselves out the door with cooler, provisions and beach gear as early as we could so we could hit the beach before we went back to the house. I think we were on the road shortly after 7:00, and we didn’t forget the stuffed cats this year. It did, however, rain.
And rain. Most of the way, in fact.


Fortune smiled upon us as we got closer to the island and it cleared up.

 
We grabbed a bite to eat, and went to the beach. The weather at this point was stunning. SD got out the kite she’s been saving for the beach, and off it went. Literally. After about 10 or 15 minutes, it slipped right out of her hands. (Read: she was squirreling around because it wasn’t as exciting as she’d imagined.)
 
 
I must say, that kite was very well designed. It stayed airborne and moved downwind faster than I could run, and let me tell you, with an anguished SD begging me to save her kite, I managed a fairly tidy turn of speed.  I hoofed it across the sand, over the mini-dunes, and across the oyster shell parking lot, only to be thwarted by the marsh. (To the idiot in the parking lot that just stared as the reel of string danced past you while I yelled, thanks for nothing.)
Her cousins showed up the next day, and much fun was during the rest of our trip - even if the boys were up between 6:00 and 6:30 every morning. SD mastered the boogie board in heavy surf.
 
Sand castles were made (complete with sand crab corpses as guards at the gate).
Souvenirs were purchased.
 
Sight-seeing was done.
 
 
 
Least favorite part? Sitting on this.
 
 
And my favorite part? Going back to the beach at sunset.
 
 




 
 
Can't wait for next year!