Posted by Carolyn K under Eats & Treats on June 21st, 2012
SUMMERTIME!! DQ®!!! Treats!!!
I love all four seasons and up here in Minnesota, summer always seems to be the briefest… poof! It’s gone.
We have a lovely patio in the front of our house – perfect for entertaining, or impromptu gatherings. Dilly® Bars, Buster Bars®, No Sugar Added Bars…and DQ Cakes and Blizzard® Cakes… any of these treats turn a regular gathering into a party. I love the cakes and the Dilly Bars, personally, and am always surprised at how quickly the Buster Bars go when there is a choice.
When our kids were little and playing on ball teams, the DQ treats we’d bring for end of game or end of season parties were always a huge hit – and less work for me!
Posted by admin under Orange Julius on July 14th, 2011
Do you like Piña Coladas? How about getting caught in the rain? Keep going . . . you know you want to sing along! I can’t help but sing that song every time I hear, think or drink a Piña Colada. So needless to say it’s been stuck in my head for the last 14 days. Why you might ask? This July and August Orange Julius® locations in North America are featuring new limited-time Colada Julius Originals. It’s like paradise in a cup, only paradise comes in three flavors. There’s Piña Colada Julius, Mango Colada Julius and Strawberry Colada Julius.
A whole-lotta Colada!
I suppose since I won’t be jet setting with my family down to Antigua anytime soon, the frothy slurps of paradise at Orange Julius stores are my next best option. So for now, I’ll grab my Mango Colada Julius Original, turn of my Jimmy Buffett tunes, kick back and enjoy my summer in Minnesota.
On my last day of seventh grade, more years ago than I care to tally, a boy named Todd wrote a cheerful little note inside the back cover of my yearbook. At the bottom, he signed his name, drew a smiley face, and added his phone number. All year long, I had sat next to Todd in third-hour math class, and had developed an enormous crush on him. Little did he know that, over the course of the following summer, I would use that phone number to call him.
Every. Single. Day.
It’s been a while since I had a summer romance as thrilling as that one, but this year I do have a new kind of crush. My latest infatuation is the Strawberry Lemonade Chiller drink, an icy, slushy beverage made with lemonade and big chunks of real strawberries. It also comes in classic lemonade and raspberry lemonade flavors, and while those are also delicious, my heart belongs to strawberry. I guess you could call it my summertime slush crush.
I think about the Strawberry Lemonade Chiller every day. Sometimes I ride my bike past a DQ® store, just to catch a glimpse of it through the window.
But, like most summer crushes, this one is not destined to last forever. Dairy Queen® Lemonades and Lemonade Chiller drinks will only be available for the summer, and I plan to enjoy them while they last.
Posted by Carolyn K under Blizzard on June 28th, 2010
Lately I can’t get Lady Gaga: Bad Romance out of my head–ru ma ga ga ga oh la rah rah rah (That’s how it sounds in my head). When I was in fourth grade I “accidentally” signed up for one of those Get 12 CDs for $1 gimmicks that turned out to cost my parents substantially more than one dollar. My favorite CD was “Monster 80’s,” or something to that effect. That same year I came down with the chicken pox, I found a pox (a pock?) on my stomach and it was all downhill from there. I was stuck in bed for what seemed like forever. All I could do was listen to my 12 CDs for a $1 and read.
Falling asleep was the worst! You know those weird dreams you have when you’re really sick with a super high fever? The ones where you start at the field of dreams and all of a sudden you’re flying on a magic carpet with Jasmine and Aladdin and then you’re in a petting zoo full of poisonous snakes? Well, because of “the pox” I kept having those dreams, but what made it worse was that they were all set to Rock the Casbah. I still can’t listen to that song without feeling agitated, itchy, and hot.
What part of our brain is it that gets a song stuck in our head? What else gets stuck in there? I really like eating pickles, is that kind of the same thing? Do singers get songs stuck in their head and if so, is it their song? What if it’s not their song? What does that say about their music?!
I’m just heading out for a run right now, 5 miles with the chorus of Bad romance in 80 degree heat with 40% humidity doesn’t sound too appealing. A Blizzard® Flavor Treat afterwards does. Rah rah roo mah mah ga ga ga oh la, oh la la….
Posted by Blizz Prez under Blizzard on June 22nd, 2010
Hey fans, summer is officially here! As a Blizzard fan, this is my favorite time of year because nothing beats the summer like a Blizzard treat. They taste pretty good in winter, fall and spring, but in summer, it’s a totally unique experience. Nothing else compares to that cool soft serve on a hot day. Not even running through a sprinkler, jumping in a pool, spraying yourself with a hose, sticking your head in the freezer, putting ice cubes down your shirt, or getting hit with a water balloon. I could keep going but I’m getting hot just typing all of this. I’m going to get a Blizzard treat…
With summer in full swing, I’m reminded of a cross promotion some DQ operators participate in with their local police force. When kids are “caught” correctly wearing a helmet while riding their bikes, they are rewarded with free DQ cone coupons from their local DQ store. While this is an optional program, meaning restaurant operators choose whether to participate, I can’t help but wish this type of reward was around when I was a little kid.
When I was young, I rode my purple Schwinn, with the flowered banana seat and plastic white wicker basket, around the neighborhood at least half of my waking hours once school was out for the summer. I rode to stores, the neighborhood pool, my friends’ houses, the park—anywhere and everywhere. But back then, we didn’t know about things such as safety helmets.
Times have changed. For many kids today, putting a bike helmet on prior to going out for a ride is second nature. What a great idea to actually stop them in their tracks and reinforce the positive behavior with a DQ treat coupon. Not only that, but it also creates positive interactions between the children and their local police force.
How exciting it must be for these kids to “win” a DQ cone, and be honored by a police officer for doing the right thing!
Summertime! Here in Minnesota that means days at the lake — volleyball, picnics, fishing, boating, splashing at the beach. Most folks go up Nort’ don’t you know. We headed south and west to Okoboji Iowa. Iowa? Okoboji? The Iowa Great Lakes region in Northwest Iowa is absolutely beautiful – and a little warmer than northern Minnesota. I’ll bet you didn’t know there were lakes in Iowa, did you?
I’ve been vacationing at Lake Okoboji since I was a small girl – my mother’s family farmed in the region. We recently spent a week there – visiting the family farm, my aunts’ and uncles’ cabins and the lakes. It was a great vacation surrounded by family and memories, and making new memories. My mother, aunt and I took the kids to the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory and artist David Rogers Big Bugs display – giant insects made out of wood. Kinda cool and creepy at the same time. I didn’t even know there was a lakeside laboratory…neither did my mom or my aunt. It’s been there since 1909! I know, not a beach story, but it does segue nicely to our trip to one of the local DQ® restaurants for a cool treat to beat the summer heat. Sullen children who are tired of art, parks and photos perk up nicely when given a DQ treat.
I hope my kids came away from this trip with good memories of the beach and Arnold’s Park, boat rides around the lake, and a fondness for an area of the world I have always loved. I know my youngest’s favorite evening was Saturday night – all the family was together at my aunt and uncle’s cabin, there were fireworks across the lake, we had a bonfire and s’mores….We finished the evening by enjoying a fabulous view of the Milky Way, which is nearly impossible to see near any city.
OH! Some small part of me always wishes I were still a child at this time of year. The end of school was a huge release from responsibilities (as enormous as they could be for a small child… Ha!). The vast expanse of unplanned summer days stretched out before me… there just isn’t anything like that.
I wonder about summers for kids these days; are there kids who still have wonderful lazy long summer days like we enjoyed? Mom would say, “Be home for lunch/dinner/before dark,” and we were off all over the neighborhood, finding tadpoles in every puddle, up and down the streets on our bikes, playing neighborhood games of Wiffle ball in the streets, or hours of “tag,” “hide-n-seek” or “statue-maker.”
I know my kids didn’t have days like that as we chased after ball games for a good half of the summer with our kids as soon as they could play… Those years when we had three going in three different directions felt like complete madness!
I remember one summer when my parents promised my siblings and I Banana Splits from the local Dairy Queen® store if we would each fill a plastic pail with gravel from alongside the driveway. They did a great job giving us this duty – it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood this was just a way to find something for three wayward children to do.
I think our parents were surprised at how quickly our pails were filled. My sister and I filled ours up quickly; we knew how good those DQ® Banana Splits would be! Our brother was still so small, he couldn’t have really understood what was going on. Some small part of me still feels slightly guilty about my sister and I telling our brother to dump the pebbles from his bucket into ours. It’s only a small part of me and the guilt doesn’t last long. Because I also remember that we all three enjoyed the DQ Banana Splits in the end. I can still see us in my mind’s eye: the three of us enjoying those wonderful cool treats after long hot summer days of digging in the dirt. What a mess! Just the best treat ever.
What do you remember from summers when you were little?
