Part One of Five
Cousins’ Days at Our House
July 17-21
We began this tradition many years ago when Jeff and Chris wanted to take a few days of vacation for their anniversary, and asked if we could keep their children. It seemed like a good idea to have Jere and Kristen’s children at same time so all our Pennsylvania grandchildren could be together.
We had so much fun, we now do it every summer, and call it Cousins’ Days.
Things have changed over the years: Jordan and Nate have graduated from high school and have fulltime jobs, and Josh and Jenna will be seniors, and have after school and summer jobs, so they were not part of our daytime activities. (You will see Jenna later in the week.)
I think most of our Maine grandchildren got to be part of Cousins’ Days at least once.
Jesse
I told their parents they could bring the children to our house as early as 6:00 on Tuesday evening (July 17). That suited Jere and Kristen. Jeff and Chris and their children went to watch a church baseball game, so brought theirs about bedtime.
Jere’s boys were in gear for Cousins’ Days, and wanted to work on crafts as soon as they walked in the door.
Ian
So I got out the paints and a long roll of coloring pages.
Shortly after Ian begain painting, he said, “I have only been here a few minutes and I am already having the best Cousins’ Days. Grandma, did we invent Cousins’ Days?”
I assured him that we didn’t invent it, but that I read about grandmas who did this – even before I had grandchildren – and decided that I wanted to do this when Grandpa and I had grandchildren.
Nobody wanted to share paints with Jesse because he couldn’t quite get it that you had to clean your brush between colors – so he ended up with everything being a pinkish brown. 
Jared said he chose these colors because they reminded him of our cruise.
The two craft tables in our garage.
The crafts on top of the table are what we will begin working on in the morning. I took the six youngest to A.C. Moore a few weeks earlier and asked each one to chose a craft.
This is why the boys were anxious to begin working on something. They knew we had crafts for them.
Grandpa and Jesse checking the directions for Jesse’s birdhouse.
We began working on this because it needed to be glued together so he could paint it in the morning.
Jared preparing to microwave bacon. He and Diana were in charge of breakfast on Wednesday morning.
Diana with the pancakes.
I had previously paired the six youngest grandchildren in twos for preparing breakfast and supper, setting the table, and cleaning up after the meal.
They had given me their meal choices ahead of time so I could have the necessary groceries on hand.
Jana helped make scrambled eggs for those who wanted them.
Enjoying breakfast at the two meal tables in the garage.
After breakfast we went for a one-mile walk for a tour of a neighboring farm.
They stopped to skip stones at my brothers’ farm pond.
Making shadow designs.
Watching minnows in a small creek.
I love photographing old fences and gates.
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Tomorrow night you will see pictures from our tour of the neighbor’s farm.
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