Reflections on Dairy Queen

Remember how we were going to get started on building our desk last weekend? Well, we pretty much only went to Home Depot to buy all the supplies. Maybe it's just because we know basically nothing about home improvement, but I'm almost positive time slows down in that store. 

Actually, it really took so long because they cut all the wood to size for us, which was amazingly helpful given that we don't exactly have room to store a circular saw in our apartment. Regardless, after we finally checked out, we unanimously decided that ice cream was in order. 

Our suburb has numerous frozen yogurt options, but only two ice cream places - Baskin Robbins and Dairy Queen, which got our vote that day. The town where we grew up also had only the same two ice cream places. Every once in a while, my parents would surprise us with a special trip to one or the other. 

Don't get me wrong, I love ice cream just as much {okay, probably more} than the next girl, but my favorite part was listening to my mom's stories about her family trips to Baskin Robbins and Dairy Queen as a little kid. She'd talk about which of her four siblings got hot fudge sundaes and who preferred butterscotch. How my grandpa always picked butter pecan, back when scoops cost less than a quarter. 

Now, on my daughter's first trip to Dairy Queen, I couldn't help chatting about how my siblings and I would try our hardest to convince our parents to make an exception for Blizzards. Because ice cream runs you a little more than a quarter these days, usually the cheaper cones and sundaes were our only menu options. But kids are nothing if not persistent and it paid off occasionally!

My mom grew up in Ottawa, I grew up in Houston, and Claire is growing up in Seattle. Three generations, three very different cities all across North America, and Dairy Queen has been there through it all. I guess a love of ice cream runs in the family?