There were five people in my family before I was born. I made six: four children and two parents. Not long afterwards, my oldest sister was married, leaving three. Then a brother was born, making us four. Another sister married, and two more brothers were adopted. Boys were in the majority for the first time, and we were five children for more than ten years before the next sister got married and moved out of the house. A couple of years later, I was married. When people ask me how many children were in my family, I usually keep it simple and say seven, but we never had seven children at home at the same time. Most of my growing up experience was of five children. I know how to set the table for seven. We sat with three on one side and two on the other, with our parents on the ends. My place was at the end, next to my father, on the side with three plates. We had less room, but passing dishes was easier because the distances were shorter. It was complex. Due to the span of ages, our family was a unique blend of adults and children. To add to the complexity, my oldest sister had six children, and the oldest of those is just two years younger than I. I’ve been an uncle for as long as I can remember.

In terms of experience, I have some insight into what it's like to be one of five children living at home. I don’t know anything about being a parent of five, however. We had two children. One was enough to be overwhelming. Two was a handful. For a year, we had an exchange student, so there were three teens in our house. When I think of my parents raising seven children, I have deep respect for them and all of the work they invested in raising their children.

The number 5 isn’t one of the big numbers in the Bible. There are five books of the law, sometimes referred to as torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Some scholars divide the Psalms into five groups. Sometimes five is seen as a number of blessing.

When I learned to count by fives, it seemed like I had unlocked a key to understanding arithmetic. It was a shorthand way to reach a high number quickly. It helped me estimate the solutions to other problems.

Somehow, through the grace of God, we have ended up with five grandchildren. It's a surprise, because I once joked with our adult children that I thought five would be a good number for grandchildren. I imagined that one might have two children and the other three. Imaginations are never quite as good as reality, however. We have four grandchildren who live just a couple of miles from us. The other one, however, lives across the continent in South Carolina. We laughingly say to each other, at least they are on the same continent. Our daughter lived in England for two years and in Japan for five. Her son was born in Japan.

Having a grandson born in Japan was quite an adventure. We bought airline tickets to be there to support the new family, but he arrived early, and we arrived late. Japan is 15 hours ahead of Rapid City, where we lived at the time. I received a call informing me that our grandson had been born just before a church council meeting. I could accurately announce to the others at the meeting, “My daughter just had a baby boy tomorrow. It was the evening of July 11, but he had been born the morning of July 12. Now that he is six years old, I joke with him that I found out he had been born before he was born. I don’t think he finds that information to be as interesting as I do.

It is a rare occasion when we have all five grandchildren together, and whenever we do, it is a real treat. The children are all different ages: 3, 6, 8, 11, and 14 years old.

Our daughter and her family are here for only a few days, and we're trying to pack as much fun into those days as possible. When we asked her son what he wanted to do during their planned visit, one thing he was quick to say was that he wanted to go camping. We are hardly on a camping trip. Our trailer is in a State Park just over a mile from our house, but it is what worked for this visit. His parents slept in our house. Our son, his wife, and our youngest grandson slept at their home, just a few miles away. We had the whole gang over for burgers and hot dogs for supper, along with watermelon and s’mores for dessert. It is not the same as a more extended camping trip, but it is as much as we could manage with all of the other activities we have planned for their short visit.

We had visions of camping with our grandchildren from the moment we saw this camper. It has a room with four bunks at one end and a double bed at the other. We only had one grandchild at the time, but we had visions of more to come. Our oldest grandson spent the night with us in the camper when he was two years old, and we’ve been camping with the grands as often as we can ever since.

The deep joy of watching the cousins play together is something that I could not have anticipated when I thought about what it might mean to become a grandfather.

Like Tevye and Golde sing in Fiddler on the Roof, sunsets and sunrises come and go, and the years pass quickly. We are aware of how fleeting these opportunities with our grandchildren are. They are growing up, and we are getting older. The time will come to sell this camper and move on to other adventures. Now, for the moment, our time is a treasure, and we are grateful for this camping adventure.