The "Not my sister "award

We vacation in Michigan every summer for the past 19 years at a place called Michigania http://alumni.umich.edu/michigania_camp/schedule.php.
Our kids loved it so back we would go.

Our daughter loved it so much, she has actually worked there for the past 2 summers.
(This summer she was the director of Nature.)

Part of the experince of Michigania for the little ones, is earning awards that you receive on Friday before you leave on Saturday.
Let me assure you that this is a BIG deal for the under 10 crowd. If your kid doesn't receive one, the ride home on Saturday is TORTURE. My kids over the years have received the most interesting/boring/funny awards.

I never knew how much effort it cost the counselors(ie the daughter) to come up with these awards and try and make sure that the little ones all get something from at least one area.

Adults even get awards for funny things. One year, there was a group of campers that sunk a sail boat-a pretty BIG sailboat- and their award was something like.... "The campers least likely to be invited back to the sailing area" award.
So you get my drift on these awards.

This summer, we were at camp with my nepwhew and his fiance. His fiance looks more like a family member than the nephew since she is very tall. When we went looking at colleges, she went with the daughter and I and every where we went, they all thought I had twins entering college....Poor fiance had already graduated from COLLEGE and was not amused that they thought she was a high schooler...but she took it with good grace.
So we are at camp and most of the campers realize that the daughter is the director of Nature and then they see the fiance walking around camp and ask her many questions about the Nature program and what time the Nature activites happen. After the first few times, she started giving them bogus times as is was just easier than saying "umm..... I'm not the director of Nature."
This happened all week, every day.
Friday comes, and the daughter is up giving out all her little awards and finally got to the last one.
(some of her awards are "the best rock polishier" "the best leaf print T-shirt maker" "the best cricket catcher(to feed the snakes with)" "the best bunny holder/ petter/ etc" "the most consistent trail hiker" and so on and so forth.

she started with "I have never given this award before and I probably won't have to ever again.... I am an only daughter, I have 2 brothers, no sisters, you can ask my mom -she is right over there.
"The NOT my sister award" goes to M********, my almost cousin, fiance to my cousin, D*****."

Lots of clapping as she goes to get her award and -no joke here- 4 people turned to me while they were side by side and said
"she's joking right? They really are sisters aren't they?"

some people just don't listen.

"OH, by the way, mom" or how we enable our grown children

I was sitting on the couch(really reclining and taking a snooze at 11:00 pm) when my middle son came in from the classes he takes at the local college and sat down in the chair across from me. This is important to note as most of my kids never voluntarily sit anywhere near me for fear of the dreaded 20 questions game happening (like "what's new?" "How was work?" you know...those really HARD questions to answer).
So I asked "what's up?"
"Well, tomorrow we are having a barbeque at work."
"That's nice."
"Umm.. I need to bring something."
"Like what?"
"I don't know.....food."
"Dessert? Hot Dogs? Salad? It IS 11:00 at night...I don't have a lot of stuff in the house."
"I don't know ...something."
"Brownies? for how many?"
"ummm. .... maybe 15? I need a meat too."
"Oko......I have brats in the freezer, buns...you can take those."
"ok...how about brownies?"
"ok...I will see if I have a mix."

Ok, remember it is 11:00 at NIGHT. Without even thinking about it, I took this on as my own issue. Said child goes off to his room as he has to work the next day and do some homework. I, of course, want to make this easy for him(I am always pleased when the word homework comes out of his mouth...especially if he is doing it!) so I trudge off to the kitchen to see what I have in the way of a brownie mix. (I am thinking 30 minutes, I am out of there and then I can go to bed as well. )
Needless to say, I had no brownie mix or cake mix or much of anything as the daughter had cleaned me out on her way to her house at school/college......Shopping at the parents is soooo much easier than going to the actual grocery store don't you think?

I realize that I needed to make the brownies from scratch...no prob...piece of cake...except, I don't have the right ingredients....After much worrying and improvising, I finally get the brownies from scratch done..used my last 2 eggs, went and put it in the pan, set the timer, went to snooze back on the couch and I was pretty ok.
Well, somehow I managed to not realize that I needed to put the mixture into a square pan and in my daze, I put it in a rectangular pan.
Suffice it to say, that I made the best homemade brownies that were, and I kid you not, paper thin and pretty CRISP... not burned I might add.....CRISP.
Let me assure you that they looked pretty awful.
"enough of this." I said and off to bed I went. "so he takes the brats only and the buns, not a dessert. It will be ok. "

So, being ithe enabler that I am,
I worried about him not having a dessert all night so I got up at 5 in the morning trying to figure out what dessert I could make without any eggs.

Just so you know, 1 cake mix mixed with 10 oz of your favorite soft drink works pretty darn good for a back up. the only cavet I have to tell you, is the soft drink needs to match the batter....in other words.....chocolate cake-use coke or Dr. Pepper or any dark color
for white cake-use sprite or 7-up(for those of you that are on Weight Watchers if you use diet pop, 1 slice(2 inch square) is worth 2 points.)
After much searching, I get the cake mix done and I am waiting for it to be done so I can leave for MY work...
rushing is never good because I ended up hurrying the cooling process and just as I put it on the plate, I leave half of it in the pan.....no worries.....I just dug it out, turned it upside down, sprinkled powdered sugar on it and called it a day. (This was just for a bunch of young men who will eat ANYTHING)
So the boy had a dessert and brats and buns to take....he was happy, I was EXHAUSTED and muttering what the He** was I thinking...he could've stopped at the grocery store and PICKED UP something for dessert.
One of these days I will not be so obsessive or compulsive....maybe soon I hope!

I saw the boy later that night after he was home from his class(again at 11:00 pm) and asked him how it went at the barbeque.
"ok." he said.
"Was there enough food?"
"umm...sorta."
"sorta???"
"well, I forgot to get the brats out of the fridge so we were a little short on meat."

'Nuff said.

*sigh*