Romney's on Vacation

The Washington Post has an interesting look at the Romney family vacation at his $8 million, 13-acre compound. The family is sort of like a cult unto themselves.

This weekend, Mitt Romney is starting his annual summer vacation on his lakefront compound here — a week of fun and family, though not entirely carefree.

The Romneys, 30 in all these days, spend their time away from the stresses of everyday life — like, say, wrapping up the Republican nomination for president — by following a highly orchestrated, highly competitive regimen of sports and games known as the “Romney Olympics.”

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Now they also compete to see who can hang onto a pole the longest, who can throw a football the farthest and who can hammer the most nails into a board in two minutes — not exactly the kind of events they’ll be giving out gold medals for in London this month.

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At night, the adults gather for family meetings, with each evening focused on a frank and full discussion of a different son’s career moves and parenting worries.

Each member of the family picks a daily chore from a “chore wheel,” so as to share cleaning tasks evenly. And before anyone departs, everyone poses on the lawn for a portrait for that year’s Romney family Christmas card. The grandchildren coordinate outfits; last summer, the girls wore matching orange and yellow polka-dotted dresses and the boys, blue checkered shirts. Read the whole thing