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Chocolate Suppers. As grandparents, my husband and I have naturally had the experience of what it was like to be a child, a parent and then a grandparent. With age comes wisdom, hindsight and a sense of what is important and not so important.

Our family tradition started innocently enough. We have seven wonderful grandchildren. Knowing how they all feel for having to eat vegetables almost daily, we instituted an arrangement with the parents to have a "Chocolate Supper" once a month. We gathered up the children and once a month they would come over to have supper with us. Well, needless to say, supper consisted of "all things chocolate" and it became a huge success! All the children would give us a list of what they wanted to eat for their Chocolate Supper and we would arrange it. The only rule was everything had to be made out of chocolate, much to their delight!

This activity evolved to a bigger family tradition. One that includes all the parents of the children. It's known in our family circle as "We Love our Grandchildren's Day". Once a year, sometime during the summer months, we will purchase tickets for everyone, parents and children alike, for the biggest amusement park in our area. We ask every individual, and there are 19 altogether, to list their favorite sandwich makings, snacks and drinks. Enough to last the whole day. Grandfather and I go purchase all the food and early that day, the children and parents come over to make their own picnic lunches up, bag them and put them in one of four coolers with their names on them. Then we all travel to the amusement park, arriving at 10am when it opens and we do not leave until closing time at 10pm. There are smiles galore from every face.....even from the parents who get to be kids again for the day! As the children get a year older they are able to go on more age-appropriate rides, however no matter how young or how old, there is family fun for every age at the park.

This annual family event became so much fun, that for the past 4 years we have expanded once again! Every Autumn we have a "family treasure hunt". First, comes our big family end-of-the-summer barbecue in which all the parents bring food enough for their family. Anything "green" brought is only for grown-ups!

As a family project, the adults help think up rhyming clues for the treasure hunt days ahead of time. Each clue is numbered and has a child's name on the outside envelope, meaning that child has to read the clue to all the others no matter

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