Cousins Camp 2011

July was a month of reunions. Actually, I should say the last week of July was a week of reunions. I had three. Crazy, I know! The most amazing part is that I made it to all three. And so did James for the most part.

Number one was my mother's family.

After the weekend of the 24th, we all headed up to the cabin to stay for a few days. We got there Sunday evening and all the cousins went almost immediately down to the creek. The adults did a puzzle and visited until it was time to make dinner. I helped Grandmary and the aunts make goulash for dinner.

At some point while most of the cousins were away playing in the creek, Shane and Mark discovered a swarm of hornety things living underneath the stairs to the cabin porch. They were trying to figure out exactly where they were living and Mark slammed his fist down on one stair and out came a very angry hornet, flew straight for him and got him right under his left eyebrow. Grandpa got the hornet and bee killer spray and sprayed the underside of the stairs pretty well and we didn't have any trouble after that but poor Mark was in quite a bit of pain. Grandmary got him a bag of frozen blueberries to put on his eye but when they thawed a bit they started leaking juice and dyed his hand so then he looked a little bloody besides swollen.

We didn't want the cousins to be scared of the bees so when they came back, he told them he had fought a bear - which was a really bad cover up because who's going to believe that? Haha! Shane told Jake what really happened and so Jake decided he would try to help the credibility of the story and started to say, "Really guys! He really did get stung by a bear...." Then he realized his slip and so did the rest of the kids and there was no hiding the facts then. Haha! But we didn't have any more issues with the hornets.

If you know my grandpa, then you know he likes to not waste anything, especially electricity, and he's very good at turning off lights. Well, that first night it took us a while to get settled. There were, after all, twenty-one of us in that cabin with two bathrooms. It took a while to figure out where 15 of us cousins were going to sleep in the loft with only 4 full-sized beds and 4 twin beds. Plus, we all had to find our toothbrushes and pajamas and take turns using the bathrooms. This obviously took some time and poor Grandpa really wanted to turn off the generator and gas lamps. We were probably on our fifth "two more minutes" when Katie came downstairs to tell us that Shane wouldn't let her get in the bed. I asked why not and she showed me her feet...


So, Grandpa helped her wash her feet so she could get to bed. By the way, I just now showed James these pictures from Cousins Camp and he said he wouldn't have let me in the bed either like that... mean boys. It's camping after all!

Mom and Dad slept on cots on the screened in porch which made me a little nervous as there has been break-ins by bears on this porch before and I kind of like my mom and dad the way there are - all in tact and everything. But nothing happened except maybe getting a little cold. I woke up to their laughter coming in through the windows so it must have been comfortable enough.

Here's Grandmary coming upstairs to see where everyone decided to sleep.

Here's me and Breanna. We both got our own twin bed to sleep on. Lucky us. Really. Not all the cousins were so fortunate. :)

Here's Isabelle who slept with McKenna and Jenny.

Here are Hailee and Nikki in their bed with Isabelle and McKenna.

Here is Blake on his and Brady's bed. Jake started out with them as well, but apparently there wasn't enough space for three teenage boys (who knew?) so Jake ended up on the floor.

Here are Katie, Jenny, McKenna and Casey on Katie and Shane's bed telling scarey stories. If only Shane had known about Jenny's feet and probably the others' as well...

Here are Shane, Brittany, Jake, and Rachel. As you can see, this is two twin beds shoved together to make a bed for Rachel, Brittany, and Casey.

Here are Katie and I.


And finally, here is Brady at breakfast. Apparently he loves cooking, especially breakfasts. So he helped with this one and it was delicious!

Here are Katie and Shane. It was Katie's turn to help with breakfast but Shane helped her get the stove going.

Breakfast was delicious! And you might be able to see poor Mark's swollen eyelid if you zoom in enough...