Fay Cousins Unite!

Cousins are important. Karl's Pinter cousins in Topeka are like extra siblings, and I know I would not be as cool a person without all my extremely cool Schmidt and Weller cousins to influence my nerdy tendencies. June and Ruben will always have the cousins at the Lake even though most of them will be second or third cousins.  But with first cousins growing up in Africa, we were sad that we wouldn't get to see them and watch them grow up together.  June and Lucy are exactly 2 months apart in age and Ruben and Kye are not even a month different (although Ruben's significantly larger at this point). Sam's our godson so having him and his family far away was fairly hard.  But God may have different plans for these 5 cousins. With Kory and Cara on medical leave in the States, we just knew we had to get together.  And the Lake was calling our names very loudly indeed.  So on Sunday after church we packed up the van with the kids and Nova and went to meet the other Fays at the Lake.

What an awesome and refreshing 3 days.  Monday was one of those perfect Lake days where the sun shines but the air never gets too hot, the water was warm and just a little bit "refreshing," and no one else was on the Lake giving the birds and bugs a chance to control the background noise.  After a trip to Pokagon and the nature center and park, we spent the day out on the Lake.  Ahhh...

Sam is four and currently speaking in the third person about 70% of the time and while were there had a fairly regular chorus of "Well, Sam thinks that maybe we should ride in the ski boat." Don't worry, Sam (and the other older kids) got to ride in all four boats - the canoe, paddle boat, pontoon, and ski boat. I think one of his highlights was on Tuesday afternoon when Karl, Kory and Sam took the speed boat out for a real joyride (after a quick trip with the girls who said they liked the fast boat only after they were dropped safely off on the dock).

June and Lucy were awful cute with the little tutus I whipped together last week for them to wear.  Their favorite activity had to be running up and down the long hallway from the kitchen to the great room. With skirts on or without, this activity filled a lot of time and coincidentally, they both slept well at night.

Ruben and Kye are not quite at an age to appreciate each other yet. Ruben seemed to like Kye's head a lot and spent a lot of time lunging at Kye hoping to take a bite out of his face.  Kye didn't really like that too much.  He also didn't like the fact that Ruben could crawl about about twice his pace and he was often left in the dust.  However, as long as adults were holding them, they found each other quite funny.

As for the adults, I can safely say that we all enjoyed playing with the kids during the day but also treasured the time we got to spend after the kiddos were asleep to just talk and eat ice cream if the stars aligned.  Watching our kids playing with their cousins was such a joy and I can't express enough how blessed I feel that we were given this time to enjoy each others' families.  Plus you can never have too many pictures of adorable cousins playing in the bathtub!

I know that neither of our families are guaranteed to decide if we'll get to live anywhere near the other, so while we have the opportunity, we will take advantage of it and enjoy each other. June hasn't stopped talking about her "friends" Sam, Yucy, and Tye and I hope she loves them as much when she gets older but hopefully will pronounce their names more accurately.