Cousin Camp: So it begins...

Oh, dear friends.

This girl is t.i.r.e.d.

I'm home curled up on my corner of the couch. I'm also basking in central air conditioning and my steady internet. It's the little things. I love being at my Momma's, but there is no place like home.

This morning, Josiah and I ran to the grocery store for necessities like chocolate milk and avocados. I will leave you to guess who chose what.

So. This was our SIXTH year of doing this. These kids are growing up. I'm still amazed they liked to come. We did give them an extra 1/2 hour of sleep every morning and let them stay up a few nights to do some serious movie watching, but they were troopers.

Our theme this year was Dragon Quest. I made up some tunics, my sister bought plastic swords and the kids made their own helmets and shields. They were stylin'.

Below is a picture of Cousin Camp Central. I keep the schedule, cousin camp rules, activity list, etc. on those boards. If it's on the board it must be true.

The past few years, I have also given the kids identities. They get a kick of this. This year, I assigned everyone a medieval or fantasy name that reminded me of their personality. For example, the youngest cousin, Payge, was Peoni Honeyfeather the Merry. 

My niece made this guy in High School. He seemed to enjoy the week. Though I can't speak for his help with kitchen clean-up.

We have also started a little tradition that is fun for the kids. The teams (boys vs. girls) are each assigned a mascot that represent our theme. They are responsible for taking care of the mascot. If one of team members leaves their mascot somewhere and the opposing team finds it...that team gets points. They are quite competitive with the whole thing. I have never heard so much smack talk in my whole life.

One of the paper dragons I made (in my free time). This guy kept trying to escape. Most mornings we found him somewhere else.

I also made a few banners for the kids to decorate with.

When I went through the pictures, I realized that we had forgotten to take pictures of the deck. We had decorated it with cool banners, shields and 2 tents that are shaped like castles. We even hung lights. Unfortunately, we had stormy weather several nights in a row so the whole set up pretty much fell apart. The kids also decorated a little bit in the living room, but we didn't get any pictures of that.

I thought this was cute.

Shoes...

And more shoes!

There could have been a reason for that! 

So I've started go through some more of the pictures. Mom gave me one disk of 888 pictures alone. I haven't even looked at the second disk that she handed me before I left. I'm skiired. 

I'll post more! I promise!