Chocolate ice cream is the way I bond with my grandpa. I definitely inherited my sweet tooth from him, and it has been a running joke as I scoop football-player sized bowls of ice cream that “you must be related to your grandpa or something.”

When I stay with my grandparents in the summers Grandpa regularly decides its time for ice cream, and I can usually hear him dishing out the dessert from the other rooms of the house so I always hurry to the kitchen, and he’s always scooping a bowl for me, too.

My favorite times with my grandpa are when, after a long day of him working out on his gardens and of me running around the small Kansas town, or after friends have been over for a few games of pickleball, Grandpa and I sit down at the little round dining table and have chocolate ice cream, musing over the day and our plans for tomorrow.