Project 41: May

I'll share more of my National Scrapbook Day pictures on Monday. In the meantime, it's time for May's Project 41, my plan to try each flavor-of-the-month at Baskin Robbins with a different friend as a year-long celebration of my 41st birthday. Three months in, I'm SO incredibly glad to be doing this. It has turned into so much more than just eating ice cream. 

 
This month, I asked my friend Sara to join me. I met Sara a few years ago when we were both serving on the board at our preschool. Her kids are younger than mine (kindergarten and preschool), so she only has 3 hours a week when both kids are in school. We met at my neighborhood Baskin-Robbins during her one free time block.

We went up to the counter and scanned for the flavor-of-the-month. Not there. The employee told us that there was an error and they were sent last month's flavor and that they wouldn't have this month's for a day or so. He was extremely apologetic and offered us free ice cream then and we could come back the next day to get the flavor-of-the-month. But Sara wasn't free the following day. What to do?!

The employee graciously offered to call other Baskin-Robbins stores in the area to see if any had the correct flavor. The one in the next town over did. We hopped in the car and headed over. It was one of those tiny ice cream counters inside a gas station mini mart, a far cry from the store we'd just left - clean, large, with good indoor and outdoor seating, as well as an adjacent shaded courtyard. But they had the correct flavor, Blueberry Shortbread, described as "delicious shortbread and blueberry flavored ice cream with a tasty and textured lemon shortbread cookie swirl."

I presented the buy-one-get-one coupon Baskin-Robbins had sent me (which the gas station employees didn't recognize) and ordered two cones of the flavor-of-the-month. I tried to pay with my Baskin-Robbins gift card, but they said they couldn't accept it. (Grrr...) We brushed some lettuce off one of the small tables in the mini mart and sat down. Here we are. Take note of the beer and chips in the background.

Sara and I had a wonderful time despite the less-than-ideal lead up. The time flew by. We spent the majority talking about parenting philosophies, difficult decisions and thoughts regarding our children's education and schools.

So how was the ice cream? Well... when I'd first told Sara about Project 41, she'd made the comment that even if you don't like a flavor, it's ice cream, so it can't be that bad. And that's pretty much how we both felt about Blueberry Shortbread. It definitely wasn't BAD (I ate it all and enjoyed it), but I won't be ordering it again. I liked the shortbread part and the lemon swirl, but I didn't love the blueberry and didn't think all the flavors really went together.

Thanks to Sara for joining me! I'm so excited to see what future months of Project 41 will bring!