Cooking for the crowd, plus some other beach stuff

One of my most faithful readers and commenters, Rachel, asked the other day how our regular beach grocery trip went this year. You see, it is So Epic that I typically blog about it, but this year -- what with the Internet outage and all -- I left it out.

But rest assured, WE WENT. We even timed it where the last one of the EIGHT OF US coasted through checkout four minutes before midnight, otherwise known as "drawer change" to those in the know. Let me just tell you: a few years ago, we were in the dark about the midnight drawer change, and we were just getting in line to check out at Wal-Mart at midnight. I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING YOU, the lines were 15 people deep when those checkout clerks all started ringing out of their drawers, and I thought there was going to be a riot. The process added at least 15 minutes to our wait time, and we were after 1 a.m. getting back to the beach house. And THEN we had to unload and put away nine carts' worth of groceries. Thus, we go earlier now and always get out of there before midnight.

This year we got started a little later than we wanted to, and we BARELY made it out with our lives. But we did it! Eight carts and $1,000 later (plus the $600 and some Patsy had spent at Costco on the way down), we were out of there. By the skin of our teeth, I tell you.

So, Rachel, that's how it went.

That was the first of what would be three-or-so trips to the grocery store this week, but of course the other ones are "just for refills" of whatever we've guzzled down and have to have more of. You can imagine that it's hard to fit everything we need to feed 27 for a week in one regular fridge and two mini-fridges, so trips back to the store are inevitable.

Tiffany and I were responsible for last night's meal, and we'd planned to make tacos. When I got out just the items we'd stored in the pantry, this is what we had:

We'd bought enough to make 84 tacos.

And I can now proclaim with confidence: It takes a lot longer to make 84 tacos than it takes to make 12 for, say, my little family. But they were a big hit with everyone, so it was worth it. Meals like that are the reason that our trash area looks like this a mere two days after trash pick-up:

After supper last night, we were all sitting in the den with our laptops and Nathaniel asked if he could read my Twitter feed. MOST of the people I follow are pretty good about foul language, but there are a few that I was worried about so I did a quick scan. Seeing nothing alarming, I let him read it. He then asked, "Mommy, can I do it?"

And he sent his first Tweet!

Shortly thereafter, Grayson Tweeted me a warning. But not before Nicholas could type HIS own first Tweet.

I don't know who Ben is, but it seemed important to Nick that Ben be part of his Tweet.

So I realize that this post has been all sorts of random, but because I want you to know what was involved in getting just one of those pictures of the kids on the beach the other night, I'm going to share a snippet of the chaos in video form. I hope in 10 years it will be easier than this!