Jason Julie Ellyse & Allie: A good old fashioned back yard evening...

Usually, we head out to eat on weekend nights. Jason's family has done this for years. We like it and have incorporated it into our family tradition too. This particular Saturday night though, we got home from grocery shopping a little later than usual and the girls were dying to play in the water. With the weather being like it has, we haven't had too many opportunities up until this point. Jason and I both caved in and let the girls set up the kiddie pool in the backyard. By about 6 the pool was finally blown up and ready to go. The girls were dressed in their swim garbs and they hit the pool asap. They played and played, jumping on the trampoline and into the pool.

We didn't want to make them get all dressed up again...alright, alright so I didn't want to have to get them all gussied up again, to go out; so Jason went and got some yummy pizza from a local pizza place that we love and we ate it with swim suits as an optional dress code. We hung out in the back yard and sat in the nice breeze.
It's funny because the girls play in the pool every once in a while however, this being a weekend night that we're usually out, we were "in" and I already had blocked out that time for family. I was just able to sit and relax and not worry about the laundry or the activities the next day or whatever. I just enjoyed our back yard and the beautiful weather.
Guess who else made it even more fun?

The ice cream truck!! Da, da, da, da!!

I have many memories of the ice cream truck going around my grandma's house when I was visiting there as a kid. I'd always get so excited to see it, even if I didn't get to purchase anything. It was just so different from where I grew up where we didn't have things like that around. Jason noticed it had the tune of "Praise to the Man" blasting from it. I don't remember that ever being the case when I was a kid.
Anyway, after walking bare foot across the street to the correct side of the road, the ice cream "mini van" (there's another big change from what I was used to as a kid) came by and stopped and we got the girls their ice cream. We didn't really have a huge selection to choose from because of their prices. Some were like 2.50 or more. Uh, hello. The store is just down the street. I guess that's what we get for the convenience of it.

We had bought ice cream bars from the store earlier that day so Jason and I had a bar to eat as well. I just wanted the girls to have the "experience." We all ended up switching popsicles because everyone kept changing their minds.

I had to convince Allie that she couldn't have both the chocolate and the sour one she'd chose from the truck. Somehow, she just didn't want to give one or the other up. Hmmmm, I wonder where she gets that from? She ended up with mostly chocolate however. A woman after my own heart.