the great camper race

We went camping with my family while in Wisconsin. If you think of camping as tents, sleeping bags and cooking over an open fire - don't go camping with my family. They're more the air conditioned 25ft travel trailer with surround sound and multiple tv's kind of campers. As you can see,I come by my love for creature comforts legitimately. They've also got camping down to an art form, which is where hubby fits in. He managed to get my dad and brother into a contest to see who could set up their campsite the fastest - egging them on during the entire procedure. Normally, we not a very competitive family, but not where campsite setting up is concerned. My dad won the contest by about 5 minutes, signifying his win by calling out to my brother, then very loudly cracking open a beer and taking a seat in one of their zero gravity, high-concept lawn chairs. I won't even tell you about their insta-pop, easy open camping garbage cans.

The first night camping, I made a Hawaiian dish for my folks and brother - one of my sisters had to be somewhere else and my other sister was coming in with her family the next day. While cleaning up, we had a pan full of leftover sauce from the chicken and my brother and I weren't sure where to dump it. He was going to put it in a corner of our campsite, but I was afraid it was going to draw flies, so we came up with an alternative dumping spot. In the campsite across the way, right where my sister was going to be setting up her camper the following day. Yeah, we're kind of naughty that way. Lucky for her, we got a dumping of rain on us right after they set up their camper, effectively washing way the fly lure we so thoughtfully dumped in their campsite. The plans of mice and men and all that good stuff, ya know?

Anyway, we all had a great time camping, my dad especially. It was the first time all 11 of his grandkids were together at the same time. All 4 of our kids hadn't been on the mainland at the same time since we'd moved to Hawaii and my brother had a little girl in the meantime. So, with all 4 of his kids and 11 grandkids all together camping for a couple days was a real highlight for not only dad, but I think for the rest of us as well. My kids are already talking about going again next year. We'll have to see how that works out.