Cousin Camp 2010: An Illustrated Guide Part 1

Cousin Camp 2010 started with a bang on Tuesday of this week. What is Cousin Camp, you ask? Well, this year's ingredients for CC were as follows:

Cousin Camp (*feeds 5 kids, 2 aunts and a mommy for 4 days)

2- husbands out of town

1- out of town aunt in town

1- week off of work for this mommy

3- little boys with way too much energy

1- Harper girl who wants to be big like the boys

1- baby Uriah who is just trying to survive the week without being squished

Step one: Add above ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Step two: Add water and shake.

Step three: Admire baby Uriah's sassy sandals...

...and watch him sleep at the pool.

Step four: Leave Harper with aunts and take Dane and Aidan to swimming banquet. Pretend it's a date with my two big boys. Dane gets a trophy and Aidan gets a medal, and Aidan declares that he wishes he could have "Bullet" in his name when he hears someone named Alexandra Bullet receive her trophy at the banquet.

Step five: Take everyone to the park. Watch them all run around in the stifling heat and 8000 percent humidity and dream of the wonderful afternoon that they will all spend sleeping off the exhaustion.

Step six: Ignore Aunt Adrienne's pleas to NOT TOUCH THE DEAD TURTLE.

Step Seven: Discreetly water the big plant at the park while Aunt Adrienne pretends not to notice.

Step Eight: Watch Aunt Adrienne run around with all the children while this mommy and Aunt Val casually snap a few pictures.

Step Nine: Put children to bed later that day and watch 3 episodes of Glee.

Step Ten: NEVER mention fireworks. Sing loudly in the car when driving by fireworks stands, in hopes of distracting busy big boys with our stunning renditions of "Don't Stop Believin' ". Mommies don't want to light fireworks, mommies want to wait until all the daddies get back in town, so they can blow things up in the driveway with their sons and we can hide indoors watching So You Think You Can Dance! on TV and NOT think about our children lighting themselves/our husbands/the neighbor's yard/the neighbor's cat on fire. Don't you wish you lived next door to us?

Step Eleven: Take so many pictures that you soon realize that Cousin Camp: An Illustrated Guide will need at least 2 Parts. Stay tuned for Steps 12-4,012.