The first time I heard about cousin camp was when my husband and I were newly married. We flew to Michigan to meet with his family at his grandparents’ cottage on the lake, all the cousins gathering together for a week of fishing, waterskiing and games of euchre just like what they had grown up doing in their childhoods.
We’ve kept the tradition going in our family with David’s siblings and the 10 (and counting!) grandkids. In the middle of every July, we meet up from our homes in SoCal, NV and TX for a long weekend for our own version of summer cousin camp.
We’ve done cousin camp in Tahoe, in Santa Barbara, at our homes in the OC. We’ve talked about going to Costa Rica and renting a big house with a private bus. We have big dreams of creating a family resort. But for the last two years, we’ve settled on glamping—low key, affordable, easy enough to do with a big group.
This year, we drove to the Palomar Mountains where we made s’mores, grilled burgers, and braved mosquitos. The kids decorated marshmallow shooters and had contests to see who could catch the most in their mouths. They wrote stories, painted rocks, and played Catan. We celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday with a carrot cake from Martha Green’s, treebathed (at least one of us ;) ), and took family picture after family picture, all of the cousins in identical blue “Cousin Club” shirts, which they wore until three of the kids fell into the pond after a log walk.
It hasn’t always been easy, traveling with infants or making long drives with littles. The yurt was very, very hot and there was so. much. dirt. (And I did mention the mosquitos?)
But was it worth it? One-hundred percent.
Favorite summer family tradition? “Worth it” moment? I’d love to know!