For the kids' birthdays we have decided to schedule a visit from the shave ice truck for the neighborhood!

The Kona Ice* (Hawaiian shave ice) truck is going to come park on the street outside our house on Sunday, July 26, 2020 from 4:30 – 5:15 p.m.! If you are local (and if your kids need a distraction) please come buy a shave ice (for yourself and your kids)! My kids will also probably be playing music in the yard – so you could bring chairs and sit socially distanced across the street and enjoy the music too. [But the shave ice truck is a secret – they don’t know about it yet!]

Since three of our four sons have birthdays this month (two this week actually) we thought this would be a fun way to celebrate while also supporting a business that could probably use a boost (as we all could – because of CoViD-19). The way it works is… the host family makes an agreement that the truck will sell at least $150 in shave ice during the visit. If they don’t sell $150 (unlikely on a 100 degree day in the summer!) our family has agreed to pay the difference.

Note: some of the flavors are just like you would find at 7-11 or similar (not the healthiest ingredients), they also have some “healthier” and sugar free options. If you let your kids have things like Slushies as an “occasional treat” then this might be fun for them, if not – I understand.

As a rare treat, we let our kids get ice cream from the ice cream trucks in the neighborhood usually two or three times each summer – but there have been no ice cream trucks in the neighborhood this year – probably because of CoViD-19 – and we are mostly doing this to try to keep things “normal” for our 12 year old son, who is starting to feel really uneasy about things “never going back to normal.”

I am also going to buy a couple of flavors of natural syrups (with no preservatives, dyes and additives and ask them to use those for my kids.) They have sugar free options – and I expect one or more of my kids might opt for an “ice only” cone – as they normally do! [So if the truck cannot put our natural syrups on for those who need it, I think we can order plain shave ice and put the natural syrup on ourselves. I am going to confirm this with the truck and will update this post when I know more.]

Since Sunday (July 26th) is anticipated to be ONE HUNDRED DEGREES here in Portland AND since it is the weekend before two of my kids’ birthdays, we thought this would be a fun way to celebrate and offer a nice distraction to other kids in the neighborhood who have been self-isolating with their families as so many of us have.

*Apparently this company has these trucks in 48 states, but I just found out about them.