Vacation

The count down is on.  We are leaving in 10 days for our family vacation.  I cannot wait but it's snuck right up on me and now I'm in a panic to get meals planned and to make sure we have everything we need.

We go down to Lake of the Ozarks every year.  The first couple of years we went down we stayed at a family friendly resort. The owners of the resort are super nice people and we do miss going there.  But, then I found a great rental house that was perfect size for our family and a couple of friends with a washer and dryer which I don't know if I could live without now.  We are only there for a week but it's great coming home without a ton of laundry from the four of us so now I'm spoiled and won't stay anywhere without one.

The house we chose for our third year, as I said was perfect.  Unfortunately, the owners took the house off the rental program and sold the house the next year.  So the search was on for our 4th year down there for another rental home.  That year we had a lot of friends that wanted to join us.  Sounded like a great idea but let me tell you, trying to keep 4 other couples happy with their kids was the ruin of my vacation that year.  Some people just don't get what vacation is with a big group and I didn't enjoy playing cook and maid to everyone the entire week while one of  other women that went sat on her arse the entire week watching me. The house was beautiful though and the owner still sends me Christmas cards to this day which stinks as I'd love to rent from her again but all of her homes down there are 5+ bedrooms and not suited for two families of four. So, the next year I searched again for a smaller home but ended up getting asked by some friends if we wanted to stay with them so we did that.  It was a perfect house and we all loved our time there. They will be going down the same week we are again this year but have family staying with them so we are staying in our own house with 1 other couple and their kids.  This year we decided we wanted to stay back up towards the part of the lake we were familiar with so after endless searching, we found what we hope will be another perfect home to rent.   It will be our good friends with their kids that are almost the same ages as our kids staying with us. They also stayed with us last year at our other friend's place so I know we are on the same page as far as how vacation goes.

Meal ideas typically come easy to me but for some reason this year, I'm drawing a blank on easy, quick meals to prepare down there.  We of course will grill out a couple of nights but I'm at a loss on what to do the other nights.  Any suggestions would be welcome!