Ice Cream & Open Houses- A Family Tradition

Growing up in a small town means you need to make your own fun. Teenagers party in fields, or drive around aimlessly looking for something to do. Mothers take their kids to swimming holes or local parks on hot days. It's a kind of slow, sleepy bliss that's simultaneously exhilarating and magical. You don't really notice how special those days were until you get older, and move away.

One of my favorite childhood summer memories wasn't running through a sprinkler, or having a picnic at the park. It was a tradition that my mom started, without even realizing she was creating something special.

Keep in mind, these were the days before tablets and smart phones. I'm bringing you back to the 90s and early 2000s. On warm summer evenings, she would take us out for ice cream, milkshakes or slushies, and then we would take a drive down the highway to view some modular homes.

We lived in apartments back then, and would dream of the house we would someday own. I remember driving there, windows down, radio on, sunshine beaming through the windows and mom at my side. 

There were always 2-3 open houses at the location we went to, and we would walk from home to home, planning, laughing and dreaming. Even though we weren't planning on buying a house anytime soon, it was our way of getting excited for all the possibilities of the future. I would instantly run down the hallway, picking out what room would be "mine" and which would be my brother's (the smaller room of course). Mom would tell us where the couch would go in the living room, and we would try to decide if our table set would fit in the kitchen. For the evening, those houses were ours to dream with.

On the way home we would talk about which house was our favorite, and how much fun we would have decorating it. 

When I was 12 my mom finally got a home of her own, and we got to do this for real- walking through, picking out bedrooms and placing furniture.

 I can't wait until I get to do that with my own family and our future home. Until that happens, you might find Mason and I skipping through an open house somewhere, milkshakes in hand, laughing, planning and dreaming.