25 cents

Growing up I remember the weekends when we would all pile into the big blue Family van, count off to make sure all six of us had acutally made it to the car and go to "the big city" of Clackamas to go to Costco or RWD to shop. Counting off included the oldest, Jon starting us off with saying "1" then consecutively down the line we would count in order of birth till we did not hear a number or we got to six. If we did'nt hear a number, then we knew which one was missing based on the number that had not been called. It was quite genius when I think about it...My parents rocked.

And on the way home, I also remember passing by THE GOLDEN ARCHES of McDonalds. It was the closest one we had to our house and it was 30 minutes away! So when we were getting close, the bartering and elbow nudging began...Who's going to ask Dad to stop for ice cream? It usually came down to us making, er asking ever so nicely, Russ, the youngest to batt his big blue doe eyes and in his cutest pre pubescent voice ask Dad to stop. We knew it was 50/50 each time, but that did not stop our insaciable appetite for those 25 cent vanilla towers of goodness to come out and practically BEG for Dad to turn right...

I remembered this childhood memory last night as we ran to fill up both cars with gas and use our reward of 90 cents off per gallon making it only $2.89! EEK. Read THAT in 20 years girls and tell me what you think...Anyway. Our McDonalds is only a few minutes away and although there are only 2 of them, the same conversation happened in the back of the car as I hear the girls whisper- "Ella, ask Mom to stop at McDonalds..." "No sister, you ask Mom to stop at McDonalds" Well this time I surprised both of them and just turned right...Well, I DID have a coupon. The cones these days are not quite 25 cents each, but...I think they rather enjoyed themselves.