With the trips that my family goes on, there is no doubt that we are going to come home with a few chaotic stories. Being in a family with two older brothers and fun parents we are perfect candidates to get caught up in some interesting situation. Two years ago we made our second trip to Las Vegas to visit family and tour the area for a second time. We stayed in a cottage type house on my cousins ranch, in the middle of the desert where the closest civilization was approximately a 20 minute drive. During the middle of the week we decided to be adventurous and climb a section of the mountain filled with cactus's and other unknown exotic creatures. We started our journey well equipped with water and a camera, hoping to come back with all limbs. The climb was extremely tough but we made it to the top and it was an amazing view. Shortly after arriving at the top we decided to climb back down except my oldest brother wanted to keep hiking. My parents were a little hesitant towards him roaming the desert but he was 20 at the time and knew how to handle himself (or so we thought). He agreed when they told him to be back in maximum an hour and a half so we parted ways. Back at the ranch we made lunch and waited for Shea (my oldest brother) to come back. After two hours he wasn't back, but no reason to panic we thought, he is a slow person. Another hour passed by and naturally my mother started getting paranoid and thinking of every possible way that he could be in danger. Her thoughts started to rub off on the rest of us so my dad and other brother decided to climb back up the hill in hopes of finding him. At this point my mother was in full out panic mode and knew that leaving him up there was a horrible decision, i was a little concerned too. My mom and i located the ranch keepers to tell them what happened so they offered to drive around the ranch hoping to find him. At this point we had a man hunt going on for my brother, i just wanted him to come back and tell him how dumb he was. After half an hour of my dad and brothers going to find him we saw him in the distance climbing back down the hill. Furious, my mother lectured him on how his actions were irresponsible and caused all of us grief and that the rest of our family is currently out searching for him. Once they came back and saw Shea my brother just started yelling at him. In that moment i couldn't help but feel fortunate enough that we are alone on this ranch because this is a dysfunctional family at its finest. Once everyone calmed down and was just glad Shea was fine, my mother and i decided we needed some sort of therapy so we drove into town to get pedicures to forget our troubles.
This trip taught me that although my families craziness can be a little much at times, why would i want to have a "normal" family. I decided this way of living is much more fun and entertaining. We were in the middle of the desert for a week, no phones, computers or friends to distract us. It was just the five of us. At first i thought this trip was going to be mediocre but i really enjoyed myself, we found entertainment in simple things  and we somehow managed to have fun while doing nothing too exciting. Now that my brothers have both moved out i think it's important we spend more time together like that week in Las Vegas, and i realized that i would go back in a heartbeat.