Vacation highlights: food is love.

I just thought about grade school days when every year we would be required to write an essay on what we did with our summer vacation.  Did you used to do that too?

This vacation was truly "historic" in that while we are a close family and get together often, we've never done anything quite like this where we all took a week to be together as adults.  I like to say we had a chance to talk in complete sentences.  (We did have my youngest nephew along with us, but he was the only exception.) 

 The 14 of us had dinner together every night except the last one, when we were on our own.  Each family took a turn preparing the evening meal and doing the clean up. I volunteered to have our night early in the week so as to avoid the pressure of the competition!  My meal was  creamy chicken enchiladas (home made tortillas) with all the toppings.

Other meals prepared by my sibings included grilled Italian sausage sandwiches and all the fixings, Greek pitas,  grilled fresh shrimp & steak, taco salad, and Cincinnati chili.  There was always an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, a variety of local wines, and yummy desserts.

While we had agreed we'd all be on our own for breakfasts and lunches, it seemed like there was always something someone was making to share or serving up leftovers.  A couple times we brought lunch to the beach.  One morning I was served breakfast in bed!  My favorite dessert was the brownies made in cupcake wrappers and stuffed with a miniature Reece's peanut butter cup.  

It all added up to 4 additional pounds by the end of the week...groan!