My family has a lot of cool traditions. We also have a lot of weird traditions that I didn't really realize were odd until I left home for the first time. One of our oddest traditions, and also one of the best things ever, is that of sandwich night. Sandwich night started in 2010 when I was in middle school. My family began making gourmet sandwiches for dinner every Wednesday night. However, rather than just make and eat grilled cheeses or subs each week, we went several steps above and turned it into an insane tradition. For 7 years, every Wednesday night became sandwich night. And it was epic.

We had a few simple rules. First, no repeats. I'm not kidding. We made hundreds of sandwiches over the years and they could never be exactly the same (with the exception of one month when we all got to remake a favorite). We defined a sandwich as anything with a filling between two carbohydrates. We had dozens of burgers, tons of grilled cheeses and paninis, plenty of wraps, breakfast sandwiches, clubs, BBQ options, sausages, vegetarian choices, and just about anything else you can dream of. We used fancy ingredients and got way too creative. We did it all. And damn, it was delicious.

Now, the second rule was that we had to take turns choosing and making the weekly sandwich. The original and constant participants were myself, my younger sister, my stepmom, and my dad. When sandwich night first began we also were still hosting my lovely foreign exchange sister, Stef, who was another co-founder of sandwich night.

When we first started, we'd invent a sandwich and my ma would make it for all of us. When we got older and she got really tired of that, the sandwich captain and inventor for the week was the person responsible for cooking their chosen sandwich as well. This meant a lot more responsibility on the person responsible for sandwich night each week. This upped the ante and increased the responsibility. When it was your week, the fate of dinner was on your shoulders.

The final rule was that we had to rate every sandwich. This is for real. We have two full notebooks at my house right now, one complete with "sandwiches" misspelled on the cover, completely filled up with pages and pages of sandwich recipes and ratings. See for yourself.

Each week while eating we'd fill out the ingredients for the sandwich and then each give them a rating based on a scale of 1-5 (with allowed increments of .25). Guys, we did not play around. Sandwich night was not something to joke about in our home.

And it became legendary. All of my friends knew about sandwich night and would continually ask when they could come for dinner on a Wednesday. And guests were always welcome as long as they were willing to fairly rate their sandwich for our book and discuss the intricacies of mayo vs. mustard and what cheese would have complemented the meat more deliciously.

As the years went on we kept track of the winning, "crown-holding" sandwich, which changed several times. (though it was never one of mine, I'll be honest. I tried so hard though, I swear.)

So, if you ever think your passion for sandwiches is epic, you're wrong. My family took our sandwich game to extreme levels every week for more than six years. We are the forever founders of sandwich night, the best thing to ever happen to family dinners or sandwiches. And you thought your family was cool.