the one about the ice cream truck

My cute little nephew, Brayden, and I have been talking for months about starting an ice cream truck business. Everyone just laughed at us and thought we were silly. We already knew we had a vehicle. My Grandma has this old van that was not being used and we knew that it was already as good as ours. Well two weeks ago Friday, Brayden and I sat down and made a business plan. We went to my Grandma and asked if we could use the van. She was so excited that we were really serious about it, she offered to help us get our business started. Once everyone decided that we were serious, they were all on board and we all got super excited! We, meaning Brett, Quayd, My big brother Brandon, his wife Danette and their other son Brennen. We didn't think we could actually get it going for this year, but we thought we might as well start working on it now so we would be ready next Spring. Anyway, that Sunday, we decided to see what it was going to take to get the van running. We popped the hood. It didn't have a battery, so we took care of that. We poured a little gas in the tank, put air in the tires and no joke, it started right up!

We even took it for a spin around the neighborhood and it ran PERFECTLY! Once we realized that getting it going was not going to be as hard as we thought, we decided that if we all worked hard, we could get it done for the last couple months of summer. So the next step was to figure out how to make it look presentable. The old paint was awful! There were huge rust spots and it was chipping terrible. We knew we wanted it to look nice in the end, so we decided to sand all of the old crap off and just start fresh. We scraped, sanded, grinded for a whole week.


It was the suckiest job EVER! Brayden and his dad and Brett & I worked day and night. We did it in my back yard, so my whole house, inside and out, was covered in dust!!! Of course, during all of this sanding, I was running errands and making phone calls all day everyday to line up ice cream, bank account, sales tax info, business license, insurance, and on and on and on and on..... In the meantime, I was still taking care of my mom/wife duties, watching my nephews all day and working part time!FYI, setting up a business is HARD! Anyway, after the sanding was finished, we had to paint. My brother lined up a shop for us to use so we drove it there and had to mask everything. Of course, it needed a few coats of primer first. And each coat of primer had to be sanded again. So we all worked hard on that too.






Some of it was just to boring for the little boys, but they were so good and helped when they could. And when they couldn't, they rode bikes! Seriously though, they were such good boys.
Now let me back up a little bit. I showed you how awful the outside was... well we haven't even gotten to the inside yet! My grandparents had been using the inside of the van for storage. Yes, I said storage.... Look at that hideous wood paneling and orange upholstery. YUCK! And you can't even imagine all of the wasps nests we found! Anyway, the inside needed a makeover too. Brett ripped out all of the consoles, couches and carpet. The sub floor was in bad shape so Brandon replaced it. Brayden and I painted the inside, Brett did the linoleum and I reupholstered the ugly orange stuff.


As I said before, we never thought we could be up and running this summer. But here it is two weeks later and we are hitting the streets! I can't believe it. We went out and about yesterday and did quite well. There are still a few kinks to work out and a few things to fix up, but all in all, we are good to go. Now you have already seen the before pictures.... are you ready for the after pix??? The two big black things on the top are speakers.... Oh yah. We even have REAL ice cream truck music!!!



I can't believe we did it! I am so proud of it and it turned out better than I ever could have imagined. This old van has so much history in our family. I know that sounds stupid, but it really does. My grandma drove it for years and everyone knew it was her. We went on road trips in it and wherever else we needed to go that we could all fit inside. In fact, I even rode to my wedding in this old van!!! My skirt had the hoop things in it and was so big I couldn't get into a car and I didn't want to take the hoop slip thing off. I told all of my bridesmaids to hop in in the van and I plopped down right in the middle of the floor! It was so funny. Most brides ride to their wedding in a limo, but not me. I rode in the action van. We have called it the action van for ever, and it has a tiny squeak so we say it has a little mouse inside. When we first started it up and heard the squeak we all said, "The mouse is still there!" We have so many fun memories in this old van. The money will be used to help the three boys buy cars, college, or whatever else. For now it will be split between Brayden and myself. And when he gets older, the two little boys can run it and split the money. Since there are three boys, we decided to call it Triple Scoops. If you want to see us in your neighborhood, just call me, text me, email me or even leave comments on my blog or facebook. I have a blackberry so all of that stuff comes right to my cell phone. We are trying to find the best neighborhoods, so any help we can get is gladly accepted! Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!!!