Summer Fun and Expensive Ice Cream

div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-slapPbDzalw/TdawEQCxn5I/AAAAAAAAAZ4/-Tl-TSuUTcs/s1600/icecreamtruck.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”213″ src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-slapPbDzalw/TdawEQCxn5I/AAAAAAAAAZ4/-Tl-TSuUTcs/s320/icecreamtruck.jpg” width=”320″ //a/divbr /Summer is coming, pools are about to open, and kids are almost done with school! nbsp;YAY!! nbsp;I am ready for a break from schedules, getting up early, and school projects i{I folded about 20 paper airplanes the other night for our son to sell at his Market Day…Ay yi yi!}/ibr /ibr //ibr /Last night we had a taste of summer activities to come. nbsp;My husband was outside with our two boys and then came in and asked, “Who wants to go for a family bike ride?” nbsp;I’ll be honest and tell you I was not the first one to jump up. nbsp;I have not been on a bike ride for strikedecades/strikenbsp;years! The last time my husband and I rode bikes together it was before we had children. I ithought /iwe were going for anbsp;leisurely ride, apparently he was training for the Tour de France.nbsp; After that ride, I silently vowed to never ride with him again. br /br /The kids got their helmets on, hopped on their bikes, I readied the toddler on my husband’s bike i{surely that would slow him down}/i while he dusted the cobwebs off mine. We were set. nbsp;We started on our ride with my husband in the front and me in the rear. nbsp;Because we had never ridden in a group, I had to instruct my 7 year old i{who insisted he wouldn’t be able to keep up}/i that he needed to stay in a straight line. I encouraged him as we rode up a small incline which set my legs on fire. nbsp;At the top, he saw my husband waaaaay ahead of us and wanted to go faster on the decent. He startednbsp;peddlingnbsp;faster and it scared my mommy-heart so I was constantly yelling, “bThis is not a race. nbsp;This is not a race/b.”br /br /We rode to our neighborhood park, where I took the opportunity to remind my husband that this was not a race. We let the kidsnbsp;strikeget dirty/strike play for a bit and then we heard it…bthe ice cream truck/b. Whenever my 7 year old hears that music, henbsp;inevitablynbsp;wants ice cream. It doesn’t matter that we have several containers of ice cream in our freezer he is drawn to all the different sugar-filled concoctions on the truck. Because we didn’t go bike riding with cash in our pockets, we got on our bikes and headed home. br /br /After a half mile of “It’s not a race,” and a few tears from my 7 year old who’s legs were now on fire, we made it home. nbsp;He quickly ran in to get his money to pay for his own ice cream and then we all waited on the driveway for the ice cream man. He showed up in a sticker covered van ready to sell us some over-priced ice cream. i{By the way, when did the ice cream truck become a van?!?}/ibr /br /Ten dollars later i{OUCH!}/inbsp;we all had our goodies. My son decided that this should be our every Thursday night activity, a bike ride and then ice cream. I don’t mind the bike ride, but we may have to provide other options for ice cream. Let the summer fun begin!br /br /a href=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” target=”_blank”img alt=”Anna” border=”0″ src=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” //a