The Cousin Connection.

So, it's a Sunday night, and I have a million things to do.

Make lunches. Iron. Balance the checkbook. Pay bills. Submit online coursework. Correct 60 projects. Pick out an outfit for Picture Day tomorrow. Etc.

Instead, I want to write about my weekend.

We had a crazy week last week. Kat finally started teaching, and all of sudden, she's not around as much. (Duh!) Ella had her first gymnastics lesson on Monday, Wednesday I had a girls' night out with the teachers, Thursday I started a class, and Friday we had our Back to School dance.  We also lost a principal, gained an interim principal, and I picked up some new responsibilities, like helping out with the Peer Leaders. (This may be babble to most, but it makes sense to me!)

Anyway, I think I saw my kids about five minutes a day this past week.

After all of that, you'd think we'd say, "let's just stay home and veg this weekend." If you do think that, you clearly don't know us very well.  Instead, we packed everyone into the car and headed up to Maine early Saturday morning. 

First, we stopped at my Aunt Ky's house. She has, among other animals, NINETEEN alpacas.  I have a little boy who is OBSESSED with alpacas.  As soon as we pulled into Ky's driveway, Ben started screaming, "al-pac-a! al-pac-a!" and fussing to get out of his carseat.  As soon as we released him, he ran right over to the fence and called to the alpacas. Of course, they were a bit nervous and began to dash around in the pen (although later Ky said they were just really horny boy alpacas....). This did not phase Ben one bit. He had the biggest grin on his face, and cried when we dragged him to lunch.

Once we returned from a delicious lunch (if you are ever in Wells, ME, you have to eat at least one meal at "Jake's Seafood" and I'm not just saying that because I'm family!!) we were able to go inside the alpaca pen, thanks to my cousin Alexis, who is amazing with both animals and small children. Ben was mostly interested in checking out the communal poop pile and watching the alpacas go pee, but he did get to snuggle on one friendly alpaca who knelt right down on the ground and let us (yes, I even got down on the ground and hugged her too...) hug her and have our pictures taken with her!

Then Ella got to sit on Haley, the horse. Of course, this was after Ben picked up some of Haley's poop and tried to eat it, so he didn't get to see her sit on the horse.

Ky and Jake also have two dogs and several cats, as well as sheep. I think I am going to have to send Ben to them in the summers so that he can get his alpaca/farm fill! It was a lovely fall day and a wonderful visit. 

(I also got to meet Ky's first grandchild, Fisher, who is as cute and adorable as I expected him to be, and I'm very sad that his parents and grandparents love him so much, because I would have liked to take him home with me.)

Next, we went on to visit my cousin, Betsy.  Betsy and I are about a year apart, and GP's two oldest grandchildren. I used to spend a week in Maine with her family every summer. We went to Camp Albany together when we were little (way too little to go off to summer camp, I think) and she let me sleep with her pet rock because I was homesick. (Yes, you read that correctly. She gave me a ROCK to sleep with.) We have always had a "cousin connection." This time, it was Ella and Max (who is 6) who shared a special bond. Right from the start of the visit, they were having fun. 

I can't explain how amazing it was. If you know my daughter at all, this should surprise you as much as it surprised me. Usually when Ella meets "new" people, she can be prickly and shy, and sometimes downright unfriendly. None of this happened with Betsy's boys.

Betsy's husband Josh and I were talking about it on the way to church this morning, and he brought up the "cousin connection" thing, and it made a lot of sense. Then I got to thinking about cousins.

Cousins have been a HUGE part of my life. On the Wheeler side, there were six of us who spent a lot of time together growing up. We'd play spy games at Granny's annual Christmas Eve parties, and shout ridiculous things while jumping off the diving board one right after the other. We'd get together a couple times a summer, maybe more often, but it was always like meeting up with a best friend. (I could write a lot more about cousins, but that list of stuff at the top of this blog is still waiting for me.)

That was how Ella and Max were this weekend. How awesome is that?   

Cousins RULE!