Spring adventure

Whenever my brother and his wife propose an outing to their daughter, they call it an adventure. So, in that vein, our family enjoys an adventure every first day of spring, thanks to Rita's Italian Ice and their yearly celebration. When you have seven children, ya gotta look for every free opportunity you can find.

And it couldn't have come on a better day. Tuesday is violin lessons day - forty minutes away - and we just happen to pass a Rita's en route. So on the way home, we all piled out to wait the ten minutes til opening. It's a good thing we got there when we did, because when we left the line was 5 times as long.

After violin on Tuesdays, we head to the library. It wasn't much out of our way to stop at yet another Rita's for another round of free ice's.

After the library, we back-tracked just a little to find the third Rita's. It would have been directly on our route from the second Rita's but since we were all feeling a little full, and wired, we thought a brief lay-over at the library would be good. The gym would probably have been a better choice at that point.


We decided to become food critics in the process. The first Rita's had slushy ice and they didn't fill the cups all the way to the top. The second Rita's was giving out free soft pretzel and custard samples and a local business got in on the deal; handing out bags of popcorn. The third Rita's had the longest wait but the friendliest service. Three of us were brave and ordered a different ice at each location; one not so brave soul ordered the same flavor three times.

Now we're home sporting multi-colored lips and tongues. Everyone has peed, and is ready for a sugar-crashing nap. Well, I am, anyway.

Oh, how we felt like homeschoolers on our little adventure. Such sweetness (pun intended) from the little things in life. And as Tim Hawkins says in his homeschool comedy routine, "Thanks for letting us out, Mom. It just goes on forever. I'm gonna write this down in my journal." Journal. Blog. Same thing, right?