WHO WANTS TO SWIM?

Grandad wants to know if you would rather he put up our pool or go to the city pool to swim. Please give your opinion.

26 DAYS

It's just 26 days until you come for Cousins Camp. What are you looking forward to the most?

To bring?

What should we bring to cousins camp this year?

Treehouse sleepout

Who is going to sleep in the treehouse this year? It will probably be on Monday night.

WEDNESDAY BREAKFAST

We can't wait to see what the Wednesday breakfast is. You kids are the greatest!

Food

We cousins have pretty much decided what foods we want but we were wandering: if we get there Sunday afternoon and leave Wednesday morning for bandera, what will we eat on sunday night and wednesday morning

Field Trip

Hey Grandmom and Grandad! we cousins have decided(probably oficially) that we want to go to Topsey for the one field trip.

COUSINS CAMP 2011

School is out for the year. Summertime is officially here. It's time to start thinking about Cousins Camp 2011.

This year will be a little different. RW and I will have been married 50 years on August 12, and we want to celebrate our anniversary with our children and grandchildren. August is a busy month for the family, so we decided to combine the anniversary celebration with Cousins Camp in July.

We'll be staying here at the Williams Ranch for the first two days. The cousins will each get to choose one meal. They have some favorites from years past, so I wonder what they'll choose. Then they'll have to agree on one "field trip." That could be hard. We'll see if they choose Topsey Exotic Ranch, Summerfun Waterpark, GoKarts, a movie, or maybe they have something new in mind.

On Wednesday we'll load up the Suburban and head to Bandera, TX, the Cowboy Capital of Texas. We'll be staying at the Dixie Dude Ranch for the rest of the week. The parents will join us on Friday. We chose a ranch that had fishing because we knew that DR wouldn't think it was Cousins Camp unless he could fish. We'd better start praying for rain so there'll be water in the river.

Plans are made. All we do now is wait for July 24. It's going to be a long two month wait.

The last day of Cousins Camp came much too soon. LT was up early this morning to help Grandad start the fire for campfire doughnuts.

First the kids shaped the canned biscuits into doughnut shapes. Pickles wanted me to tell you that we were supposed to have 30 doughnuts, but we counted only 28. Who ate two raw biscuits? She went to check the "empty" cans and found the lost biscuits.

Then Grandad placed the raw doughnuts into the hot oil. Notice the coffee pot in the lower right.

Each one of the kids had a brown paper bag with sugar in it. Grandad dropped a hot doughnut into the bags and the kids shook them to cover the doughnut with sugar.

Then it was time to eat them up.

Don't they look yummy?

We all enjoyed the campfire coffee. The first coffee we had all week.

After we got the breakfast things put away, we got ready to go the the Summertime Water Park in Belton.

The lazy river is a favorite with the kids. They zoom down a slide on their tubes and land in the lazy river. Then ride it back to the slide and go again.

Another favorite is the rings. They jump for the first ring and they try to catch the next one and the next one across to the other side of the pool. Alas, though DR tried over and over and over, none of our kids got past the first ring.

A big black cloud appeared over the waterpark, and it started lightening and thundering. Everyone out of the pool! Gracie started counting when she saw lightening until she heard the thunder. It seemed that the lightening was getting farther away, but the park was closed anyway. We got rain checks and will go back in the morning before time for the kids to head home.

Supper at Bush's Chicken. Then the kids got the tree house set up with beds and covers. They plan to sleep in their remodeled digs tonight.

Nice floor, huh?

They say all good things must come to an end. We're sad to see Cousins Camp come to an end for this year. We hope we can have the grandchildren at Cousins Camp for many years to come. They bring us great joy.

Cousins Camp Courier -- Tuesday, July 27, 2010

This is where the kids slept last night. Luke is behind the fort he built from pillows.








We awoke to thunder and the threat of rain. so after our breakfast of pig-in-the-blankets and watermelon, we spent the morning watching Home Alone 3 and playing board games.

After lunch at Rosa's, (We won't be asking for tacos anytime soon since we've had them at least three times this week.) we went home to finish putting in the floor of the tree house.

Measure twice.
Cut once.

And then into the pool to cool off.

The kids have been waiting all week for this. Homemade ice cream. They had to do the turning. Grandad thinks the old fashioned ice cream freezer makes the best ice cream.

We managed to get the hamburgers and hot dogs cooked and eaten before the rain started.

We had our delicious ice cream inside after the rain began.

Shot of the day!