27 Years Of Cousins Camp With Gramma & Grampa

?I would simply say finding the time to get together. As it stands, we have family now that would’ve been part of cousins camp in four, four different states, eight grandchildren, four, about to be five cousins, married, people working full-time over the summer. Despite all of those things, we’re still very deliberate about finding.
It benefits two or three days to still spend time together, and it’s really remarkable when I think about how many years, you know, into my thirties. Now I’ve been able to be a part of this. Welcome to the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast with DIY Healthy Lifestyle blogger Ahna Fulmer empowering you to transform your life one imperfect day at a time.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I am your host, Ahna Fulmer. Today is a really, really special episode. I’m so excited to share it with you. I am interviewing my grandparents and then the second half of the interview my cousins. And we are sharing a tradition that was started over 25 years ago now, and it was a weekend on my grandparents’ farm called Cousins Camp.
The fun fact is we are still getting together for cousins camp 25 plus years later. My cousins and I, we now have our own children, and yet we are still going to grandma and Grandpa’s farm for a Cousins’s camp. My grandfather just turned 90. My grandmother is, I don’t even know how old she is, 90 years young.
And anyway, it is gonna be a really, really special episode, and I cannot wait to introduce you to Harold and Dolores Buckwalter, and then all the cousins bring on the chaos. You guys look good. Welcome, welcome to the podcast. Can you hear me? Okay? Yes. Yes, ma’am. All right. Well, I was actually trying to remember, and I forgot to look at the photo albums that you make us every year.
What year did Cousins Camp start? 1996. This is the 20 was the 26th year this summer. Okay. I thought it was at least 25 years. And so Ben would’ve been just turned four. Okay. Yeah. So for everybody listening and watching, I would have been closer to probably, I guess it would’ve been like eight or nine. No, Andy was eight.
And you were two. Okay. I had this book. I looked Okay. So I was 10 years old. Yeah. So that’s 26 years. Um, so this is my grandparents for everyone that is watching and listening. And what, um, Tell us a little bit of the backstory in terms of how you even came up with the idea of cousins camp, which I explained to everyone before you guys came on, that it was a weekend on the farm, two nights, but how did you even come up with the idea?
I read an article in the Muti monthly magazine about a couple who had cousins camp for their grandchildren, and I thought, well, that sounds like fun. And so I told Harold to read it and said, would you be interested in doing this? I said, if we do it, we have to both do it the whole time. One can’t do it by themselves.
We’d both have to be involved. Uh, would you be interested? And he said, yeah, I think that would be fun. So that was 1996. And so that’s when we started the first one. And. We had an eight year old and a 10 year old, and then your cousin was four. And so that’s what made us make the rule then that any grandchild who comes has to be four years old.
And so we have nine grandkids and everyone came for their first year when they were four years old, minus me and my brother and my brother Andy. So we were the, we were the oldest two of the gang. And my sister and I were the only girls of all boys, which you will meet them all very shortly. They’ll all come trucking in.
What, it’s funny, when people hear about cousins camp, one of the questions that I am frequently asked, and you guys probably are too, is what do you do? And that question could take a lot of forms because what we do now looks significantly different than what we were doing. 20, 25 years ago. So when you were coming up with cousins camp, tell us a little bit about what it looked like 25 years ago.
How did you structure it? Because I think for a lot of people, the thought of having their grandkids for three days and two nights is a little overwhelming and they want to know what on earth they should be doing all that time. So what did you guys do? Well, for one thing, I don’t remember altogether now what that other couple did in their cousin’s camp, but we just did our own thing.
Mm-hmm. And of course that was, uh, as I said in 1996 when we started, we had camp in the middle of the week, but as the kids got older and some had jobs than we had it Friday, Saturday, and. I had a time schedule for every day where we had a time schedule for every day and we really followed it, just kind to try to do what it said.
And some of the things that we did, I haven’t written down here. We had outdoor treasure hunt, indoor treasure hunt, scavenger hunt, and we played board games. Pin the tail on the dunky, we’d names on the back and somebody’d have to gather. Guess whose name was? Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. It wasn’t one of the campers, it was anybody.
Mm-hmm. Uh, like a president or whoever. And we played kickball. The volleyball can jam and, uh, croquet. We had, uh, hotdog roast. Picnic. We played hide the symbol. We made homemade ice cream. We shot water balloons. Mm-hmm. Oh, what else did we do? And when we say we shot water balloons, a lot of people might be picturing a small little shotgun type of water balloon.
But Grandpa you had, I don’t even remember when you got it, but you had that like big slingshot. He’s not big slungshot. Yeah. Could pull back at least far as they could pull five, six. And let her fly. And for some reason they all was aimed for the silo and they did. They got to be pretty good shots. Yeah.
It took two adults and basically the slingshot, you would hold one arm up and then the other person held the other arm up and we would pull it as far back till our butts were pretty much on the macadam. Yeah. And sometimes it would carry us with it cuz we were so little it would sling us with the water balloon.
We did that every year for a long time. Yes. Yes we did. And I remember Uncle Jean’s pool, so grandpa’s brother for many years. We did three things every year. Every year. And uh, one was going to my brother’s swimming pool, we went bowling and we played miniature golf. Mm-hmm. But we always added an extra thing each year.
Okay. I have those written down someplace. You probably remember all this We do. Went to the corn maze. That was one of our first, for those of you local, by the way, we, I’m pretty sure the year you took us was one of the very first years Cherry Crest ever had a maze. I’m pretty sure you took us to one of the very first years and now it is a massive like national attraction.
Yeah. So you took us to one of the very first. Yeah. We went to the Corn MAs. It was big too. We went on the railroad. Mm-hmm. At the CTU barn. We went to the IMAX and Whitaker Center in Harrisburg. We went to the Lancaster Mount School and watched a movie of Veggie Tales. We went to, I remember that Echo Cave, Dutch Apple Theater and saw Jack and the Beanstalk.
And another time we went and saw Sound of Music and we went to the Dutch Springs, the big, uh, pond that had all kinds of extra things out in the water mm-hmm. That you could do. We went to the Hershey Chocolate World, we went to the bookstore one time, and the kids could all buy a book that they wanted to.
Take a long home. We went through the Anderson pretzel factory and watched how they make pretzels. Do you remember these things? I, there’s a couple. I do not remember. Yeah. We went to Mount Gretna, we hiked, went swimming and went to the jigger shop. And of course, I know you remember, we went to Sight and sound at least once, maybe twice.
Mm-hmm. That’s some of the things we did. And what, I’m curious, do you have memories of, I mean for those of you listening, there was nine of us grandkids, and I’m the oldest of all the cousins. So there were some years where you had, I’m trying to think of the ages, but there would’ve been a lot of little.
I mean, pretty many young kids in one cousin’s camp, and I can tell you that there was a year grandma and grandpa were not sure if this would continue, and it had nothing to do with my little cousins. Do you want me to tell about that? Yeah, go for it. Because this is real life. I mean, you had some challenges.
The first year of cousins camp with you three, you and Andy and little B. Uh, Ben was great. It was wonderful. It was the second year for some reason Andy thought it was fun to poke fun at you and fuss at you. And of course, whose side is little five year old Ben gonna be on? Of course he’s gonna be on his boy cousin’s.
And it was not good. And so we said at the end of camp it’s gonna be like this. We cannot have cousins camp again. That everybody has to love each other and praise each other and not put them down, but must accept them. And if it can’t be that way, then we can’t have cousins camp. And I am thrilled because as far as I know, every year after that was wonderful.
I don’t remember anybody ever picking on anybody or calling them down. They just treated him with love and it was great. All the rest of the years, that was the only year. Yeah. And we’ll have to bring that up when everyone comes in, cuz it always makes us laugh. Andy and Ben and I were the three that were about to derail cousins Kim before it even began the three oldest.
But yeah, there were some years where you would’ve had quite a few young kids and I don’t know what you would say, but I think one of the reasons. It was successful was that you were really good at filling in the time. Mm-hmm. You had a really good structure in place and for young kids. I think with that many young kids too, I think that was a big reason it did work, is you kept us very busy, which I think one of the things we’ve not talked about yet is every year, for many years we did a project out in grandpa’s shop, which was also really fun memories for us.
Grandpa, do you have a favorite project when you look back on them all? Do you have one that was your favorite? Yes. I think we’ll get into that. Okay. Little bit. Let me say, each year we had a Bible theme. Yeah. Okay. And I would take the cousins to the work, my workshop mm-hmm. For a project. That related to Dolores’s Bible theme, that’s how we would work it.
So we have some here. One year, the theme was God keeps his promises and so they made a rainbow because God made the promise that never again would he have a flood that would cover the whole Earth. Then we also talked about other of his promises, and then one year the theme was God is love. And uh, of course they didn’t make these, uh, letters.
Harold made them, but they had to paint them. And then, oh, do you have one and glue them together? Yeah. Can you hold it up into the camera? Oh, didn’t they see this one either? Oh, no. So hold it up. It should cover your face. Put it in front of your face. There you go. Okay. That’s the rainbow. Then. This is, I remember that.
That’s, God is loved. Can you see that one? Yep. I remember that one too. Okay. Then the summer after nine 11. Yeah. See that? That one was one of my favorites. I like the clock. The theme was Freedom in our Country and Freedom through Jesus Christ. And then, uh, one year the theme was truth. Can you see that?
This is my favor. This is, yes. And if you see the Bible, the you is an open Bible there where we find the truth. So that’s four of the projects they made. I don’t know if you wanna mention any of the others or not if you want me to mention No, my were, there were so many. Yes, there were. Yeah. The cousins could probably remember as many as I could.
One of my favorites was actually the year that we did the, I forget what the Bible theme was, but we did our favorite sports teams on a plaque. Yes. Right. And then we painted. Yeah, Zach, I was married actually when we did that cuz Zach did it. Oh, it did a dolphin. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Zach did a dolphins, that’s right.
Yeah. It hung in Caleb’s room for a long time. Yeah. I’m glad that you pointed that out because that is something that we’ll also talk about with the cousins too. But that was a really crucial part of the weekend and the time, especially growing up as you did an incredible job at bringing scripture into it and making it special in a way, just beyond spending time together and then tying in the project was really, you guys were very intentional about that every morning and evening on that theme.
Yeah. And I always led the devotions, but then as the children got older, then they took turns fleeting in the devotions. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of a special. Mine were always on the theme. I don’t know when, uh, cousins started having devotions. I don’t think you had it on the theme. You just had whatever your, whatever you got for your devotions.
Yeah. As we got older, you just assigned several of us and then we took turns each year to just lead our own devotions and what God was doing in our lives at that time, which is a special. It’s cool to think that you led them initially and then years later we were leading them. That’s, that’s a legacy there.
What advice would you give, because we’re talking about projects. I think one of the things that a lot of young grandparents today, when they hear this idea of a cousin’s camp, when they hear your story, I mean, we were so blessed because we had the farm. You know, we had a massive back porch where you could lay out all the mattresses where we could sleep, and we had all of the space to play.
We had the barn to do dinners in, and we had the shop to do projects. And a lot of grandparents don’t have that. You know, a lot of younger couples who would like to start a tradition like this might not have. Resources. What would you say to them to encourage them to do something like cousins camp without those resources?
Well, I would say they’re gonna have to have a plan and stick to it for what they have for whatever they do, and, uh, work with it. But he’s, she’s wondering what all, I don’t know, they can still do a treasure hunt outside. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and inside we had ’em inside. They can do board games. They can pin the tail and the dunky pin names in their back.
I don’t know if they can play kickball, but I bet they could play croquet. Mm-hmm. As long as they have a yard and they can have, uh, hide the symbol. A lot of that stuff they could do. Mm-hmm. Uh, making homemade ice cream, I don’t think they could shoot balloons. Well, unless your neighbors don’t mind, but you could go to a park, you know, you could take your grandkids to a park.
We went to the Manheim and the, uh, Warwick Park, splits Park. Yeah, I think what you’re both saying, I mean, grandpa, you said it really well, and I would encourage those of you listening who love this idea, but are wondering how you would implement it, is, I think what grandpa just said is you plan, you have to plan ahead and maybe you think outside the box.
The reality is you work with what you have and think creatively. At the end of the day. I think the secret is you’re spending quality time together and making memories, and especially in today’s technological age, the things that children really enjoy still have not changed that much. And one of our rules is we were not allowed to have cell phones at cousins camp.
Now as we’ve become parents and stuff, that’s obviously changed a little bit, but we are still very intentional about putting our phones away because we were raised to prioritize time together. And so what is really something is when we all get together as cousins, this is even true at our family cabin.
Where we go every Thanksgiving with all the cousins is we all work very hard when we sit down to play a game, to put our phones away because we were raised to do that. And so I say that only just to encourage you, if you feel overwhelmed by this idea of having your own cousins camp, if you are creative, you think outside the box, work with what you have and you spend dedicated time with your grandkids, they will love it.
But like grandpa said, you have to be consistent. Come up with a plan, stick to it. If you say no cell phones, that means no cell phones. Put them away. And then you have to be intentional. They spend a lot of time with us. You know, they set aside three days to focus on just us. So you also made space for that fun to happen.
So I think that is great advice. Always. You have to tell them that you are the camp leaders and they have to obey what you say and uh, and then you just follow your schedule and. Have to go along, but I think they seem that they really want to go along. We did have a half hour, do you remember? We had a half hour when they had a rest in the middle of the day and uh, you could not talk to each other.
You might be on your sleeping bags or any place in the house. Yeah, we weren’t supposed to talk to each other. That was very possibly the least successful thing that ever happened at cousins camp. I’m not sure how much thing is it worked. It did work. When you have structure Yes. And you, you’re in charge.
The kids rolled with it. That’s one of the, the neat things is we look back over camp for 26 years. That’s high on our list. The way the kids just rolled with the things. We, uh, usually ate one meal out during the time. The others, we all ate at home, except we took lunches to the swimming pool and, uh, there was a list of who would help to set the table for the meal.
Oh, I’m glad you brought it up. Clear the table off after we ate. You know, everybody always obeyed and did what they’re told to do. That’s one thing that made it success. Everybody obeyed everything, seemed happy to do everything and just go along with what we had planned. That’s exactly right. And that’s what made it so successful because the kids were so ready and willing to go right along with whatever we said.
Yeah, and I think that’s partly because, again, like you’ve been saying, you set that expectation that if you want to continue to do this, that’s what needs to happen. And you created that space to have fun, but it was also very structured. And I think when you’re talking young kids, that has to exist. So there has to be some structure.
Now, I will also say this though, you did a good job at reading the room. There were times I can remember grandpa just saying like, okay, let’s not do that. Like just in that, you know, you could tell that we needed to either end this sooner or start this faster and you were also flexible. So I think that is something.
To take note of as well if it was clear that the cousins as a whole were not super excited about doing something, you were also good at adjusting because we’re talking young kids. I mean, I think there also has to be a degree of flexibility there as well. And I think you guys balanced that. And I think what we probably did was go on to the next thing on our list that we had for that day.
We just Yes. Drove sooner. Yes. But you didn’t take it personally. I think that’s what I’m getting at is for people considering this is not taking it personally, you know, if your grandkids are not as excited, one of the things that comes to mind is remember the logs that we kept? Yes. Remember how you had us do logs?
Yes. Yes. And I, it did not take long for us to be like, I think you figured out we didn’t love it. Yeah. Stop it. Like we would draw pictures and stuff of, well, it doesn’t help that none of us are artists, with the exception of two, my sister and my cousin Josh. So drawing the pictures of what we did was probably nothing to write home about.
And you guys adjusted to that and you took that off of the to-do list, if you will. So I think that’s a, an important point to make as you guys also did well at adjusting. Do you have any specific, I’m really excited to get into this with the cousins. I have a bunch, but do you have any specific memories that stand out?
Funny, meaningful. Bad, whatever from the years. Like are there any memories you especially have in your mind that you can think of that you either enjoyed or thought were One memory? I have that’s not specific, but it is just the behavior of the kids. It’s just, it was just wonderful how they behaved. My one specific one, when Emily came the first year, she was four years.
That’s my sister. For those of you listening, she was four years old. We were having a picnic in the backyard and uh, she was sitting beside Ben. I had made my own iced tea and Ben said, I think this is the best iced tea in the world. And Emily said, yes, I think it’s good. She said, but just because it doesn’t have any flavor doesn’t mean it isn’t good.
She was sweet. Leave it to Emily. What about you, grandpa? Do you have anything specifically you remember? Well, that’s an easy question, Ahna, because my answer is, It was a joy to reflect back over those 26 years with the cousins and to see these goals and values in their life today. Mm. They love the Lord.
Some men are married and have their children of their own now and laying down a good, solid Christian foundation. Hey, this is real. It’s a joy. Just to reflect back on all those years, were you one specific I always said. After three days of camp, you were very tired. I learned that early in it. After three days I was tired, but it’s priceless.
To think back. Your one thing is down at Shady Maple. Watch the, what the kids got to eat and stuff? Yeah. Oh, shady Maple. Oh, I forgot. We went there. Remember we went to Shady TV a couple years. We went that Shady Maple was pretty far away. Yeah. For their big, you know, make play of food. And when we Gwen, we’d sit down and have a word of prayer and then turn ’em loose.
You just go pick out whatever you want. And uh, it was really interesting to watch you kids come back with the types of food. I’ll never forget, uh, Dave, he was small and uh, he come back with a huge cup of coffee. What, what do you call that? Special coffee? Like a cappuccino. Cappuccino. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah.
He would come back with a big cup of that and smiling and funny. Well, we were raised. Listen. A fun fact for those of you listening, grandpa from when we were like walking would give us sips of his coffee. This is probably why I’m obsessed with coffee. Yes. I can picture him like from the cousins, those of us, like very young.
He was giving us coffee, so yeah, we were raised well, we’re Christians. We love coffee.
Yeah, we crush coffee in this family. That’s so funny. I also, one of the things that was special about cousins camp is grandpa also has this knack for when we would get ice cream. You always wanted grandpa to serve the ice cream because, We would come away with a bowl that had like four massive scoops to overflow.
Yes. So when we went to a smorgasboard at Cousins’s camp, you better believe it was our plates were loaded. Yes. With all things. Yes. What are there any other things before we bring all the cousins to the party, is there anything else? Any final thoughts or advice that you would give? Well, when we first started camp, we thought the kids would come till they’re 16 and then they’d think I’m too big to.
Go with those little kids. Yeah. And now this was our 26th year and the oldest one was 36 years old, so we were kind of wrong. That would be me that they would only come till they’re 16. I’m almost 40 and I’m still coming to cousins kids. That’s right. And so they’re all older, so they’re all five are married.
They all, they kind of come and do their own thing and we just love to have ’em here and uh, watch what they do. But we don’t really have to do anything. Like a couple or some of the cousins will bring food for a meal, make a good breakfast. There’s no structure anymore. You just do what everybody wants to do.
And, uh, that’s fun for us to just watch what you all do together and see. Yeah. Special. This year we. I think most of cousins can’t Playing volleyball. Yeah. As cousins. And now that all of our spouses come, I don’t even know how many of us there are now with spouses. There are 13. 13, okay. Yeah. This year was a little making up our own fun.
Yeah. This year was a little different because of Harold’s. We were celebrating Harold’s 90th birthday. Mm-hmm. And so we didn’t have our usual camp, although the campers were all here and we played volleyball and, but it wasn’t quite the same as other years Cousin’s camp is. Yeah. Yeah. And we come and go and depending on what kind of childcare we have, once in a while you’ll see one of our little rug rats show up because we don’t have childcare, so.
So now we’re watching, you’re watching your great grandkids playing. Yeah. And they get along very well, which is a blessing. We thank the Lord for all the love that is in this family. Yeah. Well, we are very grateful and we will. Get the cousins to join in here and share some more fun. We’ll get ready for the, the chaos here.
Well, here’s the gang. We’re missing a couple. We have two that cannot be here. But really quickly, I’m gonna introduce, my brother is Andy. He is waving there for those of you watching on YouTube. And then my sister Emily, we are the two girls in the group here. And then there are four brothers, Ben, and there he is.
And then Aaron is next. And then Daniel is not here. He lives in Montana, running an empire out there. Mm-hmm. And then his brother David is there. Hey Dave. And then there’s two more brothers, Jonathan. In the super cool Victorian home that we were talking about earlier. And then his brother Josh, is in college and I’m not sure that he can make it tonight.
So I was amazed. We got this, many of us at one time in one spot. We, I interviewed grandma and grandpa first before some of you guys got on here, and there were so many things that I was like, oh, we need to talk about this once we come on here. There’s not, yeah. Sorry, I had to pause that for a second. My daughter’s in here.
This is real life. I, yeah. It’s like I’m used to pausing these for these children, so I have an editor, oh my word. We talked about a bunch of different things, but one of the. Questions that I want to just start out with. I asked grandma and grandpa some of their favorite memories and we of course had to highlight the fact that there was a year there where three of us almost derailed cousins camp.
Cause at one point there was a bunch of little kids at cousins camp, but that was not the year that cousin’s camp nearly tanked. There was three of us, Andy, Ben and I nearly derailed cousins camp and yet then Aaron came and I guess saved us. Not really sure. You’re welcome.
But anyway, I was asking them some of their favorite memories, and I’ve literally written my own list. One of the things I will start, feel free to chime in here, but one of the things that for some reason stands out to me is all of our car trips between the random music that we started out listening to in your, was it a Buick?
That you guys had that car. Ben’s nodding so he knows. I can’t remember. Maybe. Oh, Oldsmobile. Yeah. And we always listened to that one tape and it had the yoing song on. Do you remember that, Andy? What was that? It was, if that was, I think it was like an Eddie Arnold Greatest pits cassette. But it was the cattle call song that was, yeah.
Oh, the cattle a particular favorite. Yeah. I mean it’s ling adjacent for sure. I mean, would anyone like to give us a small snippet? Feel free. It literally was like yoing ish, but I remember that. And then the other thing, what was that? Oh, it’s the thing. You could add some in post so everyone could hear the song.
I should add some in post. Yes. The cattle call by who? Eddie Arnold. Eddie Arnold. All right editors. See if you can find that. But then the other thing that I remember, we’ve talked about this before, is we would watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I don’t even know how this got started. I think it’s cuz Grandma and grandpa owned a total of five videos.
And we watched the same ones over and over again. Some are very memorable. Pilgrim’s Progress being one of them. And, and Andy’s, yep. It’s a favorite for many. But there was one year that Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, for those of you not familiar, it was the musical version. And we watched it when we would go on the long car rides to one of the events and we were like, I think I was in college and we were watching it and there was this one year where all of a sudden it clicked for us that like, wait, what?
He was singing the blessed. Her beautiful hide song and we were all like, wait, what? This is terrible. I don’t know why I remember that. Andy, I think you do need to give us a version of that song. I wouldn’t dare bless her. Beautiful. Hide. Yeah. I actually couldn’t remember that for a second, which is really odd where she, maybe I can’t remember the rest of it.
There’s some really weird lyrics to it. We’re like, wow, this is really misogynistic. Yeah, just a little, and we still watched it every year. We were like, oh well. So anyway, that’s one of mine. Any moving on Andy, what’s one of your specific memories over the years? I remember very distinctly. Especially the years went on and we added, added more back porch, got pretty crowded by the end, and we would all sleep on the back porch.
And some of my fondest memories are just even like I’m years, not even necessarily in my C, everybody laying out there and, and I remember several years in a row, actually, this would be more recent than my childhood, even though it was early August or late July, we had beautiful weather for sleeping outside.
I don’t know. I just have fond memories of everybody out there, all in one space. And even, cause even at that point, you know, Lauren and I would’ve been in North Carolina. I know, um, Jonathan and Josh, of course East Tennessee, central Tennessee, and just everybody being in the same space, literally right beside each other, crammed into this little back porch.
Yeah, of course. Our shout of singing random songs. And was it Daniel who tell us about his dreams or talk his sleep? Yes. I’ll save that for someone else, cause I’ll butcher it. Jonathan probably has a better grasp on what Daniel was doing, but very music or jokes. He was telling jokes what he was, I remember doing bedtime stories like he used to always tell bedtime stories that were bizarre but hilarious, very off the cuff.
And I remember Daniel when he was real little, like his first or second year. Tried telling a story, and I don’t remember all the story, but I just remember SpongeBob giving Birth to Power Rangers being a big part of being a main aspect of this story and finding that, finding that hilarious. Let’s keep talking about Daniel while he is not here, this is good, right?
No, I do remember that. And I also remember steamrolling. Do you guys remember that? Because again, so for those of you listening, what grandma and grandpa did is, we kind of alluded to it earlier, but they took blow up mattresses and then they smushed them together on the back porch and it was a nice ice back porch, but it was still not massive.
I mean, we were literally, like, some of us were in cracks, you know, falling between the, and we were just like smushed together. So there were a couple years where there were some steamrolling events. I do recall. I was always on the end, so that was precarious. Do you ever fall off? What? Did you ever fall off like the edge of the porch?
I never fell. Somebody did fell off. I never fell off. But I did have a couple years where I was soaking wet because it would rain, and even though it wasn’t like, A terrible rain because I was literally on the end cuz everyone else was either like going into the middle, cuz then there was a big table on the other side.
So I did have a couple of years where I was very wet. That’s, I don’t think I fell off though. Yeah. All right. Who’s next? Ben favorite memory? Can you hear me? I can be more than one. Yeah, you sound good. Okay, good. I switched to my microphone. Very official, like, you’re ready to play a game. This is what I use for work, so I like it.
They’re like $10, but they work pretty well. So it’s funny, Ahna, I actually changing it to, I really liked some of the special events we did, specifically going to the IMAX theater up in Harrisburg. We went to, what was the science museum called? I forget. Whitaker. Whitaker Center. Yeah. And I think I was at the right age where I wasn’t super young, probably like nine or 10 or 11.
And cousins camp. I just looked, I looked forward to it so much, and I think we went back to back years because the first year we loved it so much, but we would go to the Whitaker Center, there’s a bunch of cool experiments and hands on stuff to do, and then we would go eat lunch at Strawberry Square. And I think I, I think I ate Arby’s and remembered the curly fries for some reason.
So, super specific Ahna that I really enjoyed, uh, the Whitaker Center. Yeah. Huh. And Arby’s, not to be forgotten. Yes. We didn’t get out much at the time. We prob I probably didn’t visit cities that often. And then just going into Harrisburg and walking through Strawberry Square and IMAX and Whitaker Center was a lot of fun with my cup.
Remember what one of the IMAX movies wore? I have a very specific memory of NASCAR being Yeah. What? And it was pretty wild. Yeah. Andre Brothers maybe were in it. Yeah. I just remember, wait, we watched that for Cousins camp? Yep. Yeah, it was like a, where I was a 360 imax. Right. Like it was like an immersive, yeah.
Yeah. It was great. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. I have no memory of nascar. That might say something.
I do not remember that. Okay. Well, Arby’s Whitaker Center. Aaron, what’s yours? Am I doing this award? Yeah. Aaron’s next. Oh, well I have to remember how old you guys are. Yep. Aaron’s next. Yeah. I would say memories from me. I was actually thinking of a more recent one. Uh, I forget how many years ago it was.
Maybe it was like four years ago now. But, uh, definitely when we were more adults. But I remember there was a big rainstorm, the one cousin’s camp, and it filled the swale with water. And I just remember we spent like probably a solid hour and a half just throwing Frisbees and throwing footballs and like trying to dive and catch ’em in the water.
I don’t know why that one stuck out to me probably cuz it was like the first time, probably in like a year or two that I actually like just ran around and jumped around and, I don’t know, just accidentally were all, were acting like, I don’t know, kind of like middle schoolers almost. And uh, we do that very and the next day I was extremely sore.
I do remember that. So, so that was one memory, but I was more thinking of just the anticipation of everything. Like I got more excited for cousins camp than I did, like going to the beach, which I love going to the beach. But just because we didn’t know, I don’t know, grandpa and grandma, you guys just did a good job at like.
Not giving anything away. Like the color of the shirt was like, oh, what’s the color of the shirt? And I, oh yeah, we had t-shirts, you guys, we got t-shirts every year for a lot of years. We didn’t talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. So the color of the shirt and then the theme in the wood shop, you know, what were we gonna make that was anticipatory.
And then we knew what food was coming, but we still anticipated it anyway. Oh yeah. Let’s talk about the food. There were a couple feet, these, oh, oh, there comes, this is the cousin’s camp. You guys got together and, uh, made this blanket for us from our shirts. Yeah. There’s Zach holding it in the background.
We got Vanna White back there. Oh, I dunno. Exactly. Accent. Yeah, so those, so for those of you watching on YouTube, those are all of the shirts that we collectively got together one year. And then I think it was my mom that actually sewed it together. We all contributed shirts and gave that to them. I have a picture I’ll make sure gets added to the show notes.
So anyway, that was just anticipating everything and then, Later on in life, being able to, like Tiffany, my wife coming in and like Ben’s wife coming in and then Andy’s, you know, Zach coming in and Laura and just bringing other people in as things kind of calm down a little bit less event wise and we didn’t need that to stay busy.
Yeah, it was just fun to like form those bonds and anticipate all of it. Look forward to it. Yeah, I agree. John, the SW was definitely one of mine as well. I just remember people belly flopping into the water that was, that was a lot of fun. And like you were saying, throwing Frisbee and football and just diving headfirst into the swale.
Those definitely, yeah. For those of you that don’t know what a swale is, by the way, it’s in the backyard. There’s like two hills that kind of converge at the bottom and it almost looks like a stream that flows through their yard. In case people are like, what is a swale? So when it gets really heavy rains, there’s water that collects there and it kind of like runs down their yard into the stream that is on.
The side. So anyway, sorry John. Go ahead. Well, nothing definitely becomes like a mini river at that point. I mean, it’s, it gets going. Other memories, let me think. I remember doing, when Emily and I were little, you guys would want us to play cops and robbers. Yeah. And, uh, somehow the littlest kids were always the robbers or always the cops.
We were always the cops and they were the robbers. And so it was always very easy to trick us. And they would go into the room and steal What, what were those like blocks that they had? They had roosters on them. They were cardboard bricks with roosters on them. Yeah. They were like cardboard bricks. And those were like the prize that the robbers had to get.
And you, you guys would, we would hide them in different rooms, but we were too young to really hide them Well. And so I remember everybody like always coming in and pretty easily stealing it. And then like, because we were so small, when they would run out of the room, we would try and grab ’em to. Catch them and they would always be like, no, you didn’t get me.
And we’d be like, I was holding onto your leg and you ran out like, I’m on your leg right now. I don’t understand how this doesn’t count as a catch. But yeah, we were very good at coming up. With creative ways to enjoy the resources that were available. Grandma, for those of you that don’t know this factor, your grandmother’s not like this.
Grandma keeps everything. So like a lot of her toys are 50 years old and they got played with many, many years later. So we may do with like whatever was up there. And one of the memories I have, this was cousins camp, but also not cousins camp is, and I don’t remember which of you cousins it was with, but do you remember the race tracks, the bright orange plastic race tracks that we would run after each other and hit each other with?
I was gonna say I remember hitting each other with those. I remember not using ’em as a racetrack. Nope. I don’t think we used ’em as a racetrack once, at least not in my memory. But we would do that. We would chase each other and play tag with these like plastic racetracks and we’d like whack each other with them.
Yeah, fun times. Well enjoyed by all you have tried it all. Worried you will never lose the extra weight or reclaim the energy you once enjoyed. Want to achieve fat loss without spending hours in a gym or eliminating entire food groups from your diet. Well, now you can In the virtual faster way to fat loss.
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Yes. So my strongest memory is when Daniel and I. Got home alone to stick with the theme of talking about Daniel while he’s not here. He and I were playing ping pong in the game room. So grandma and grandpa repurposed an old wood shop, I guess into a game room with ping pong air hockey. So we used to keep all of our cousins camp projects.
Ahna would keep all the ones she made. Anyways, Daniel and I were playing ping pong and when we walked out it was, everyone was gone, nobody was there. And we were literally Kevin McAllister just walking around the giant farm property all alone. Had no idea where everyone went. It was just us. The doors were all locked and we were, I wanna say like late elementary school.
So we, you whipped out your cell phone. No one tried to rob the farm, so we didn’t have to set up a series of traps to prevent the farm from being robbed, but we did not have cell phones, so I knew where there was a key hidden, and so I broke into the house basically and just started calling. Luckily, I knew Ahna’s.
Cell phone number or I found I might have, so I knew that we were supposed to go to Uncle Jean’s pool for swimming that day. So I might have even used grandma’s little flip. What do you call the old school where you would keep everybody’s numbers? The flip books? Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Used to play with it. You like you moved the little dial to the Yes letter of the last name. Then you pressed the button and it like flipped open. Yeah, we can all picture it. I think I was looking for people’s number in there and found someone called a bunch of people. No one picked up. And then finally I got old of someone and no one even knew we were gone.
Didn’t. That’s so funny. Have no idea you’re gonna give Grandma Nightmares tonight. Now I know. They didn’t know. So for, to help people understand how this can even happen is what we would take two cars cuz we obviously got to be such a big group and so this happens even now. When we have cousins camp, we have to make sure like everyone actually has a ride because you’re in multiple cars going places.
So you think somebody’s in one car or in the other car, et cetera. And you always wanted to get the TV car. The one with seven brides for seven brothers. Yeah, I mean it was, it was no big deal. We got picked up minutes later and spent the rest of the afternoon. So funny swimming at the pool. That would be memorable.
The pool, let’s just take a quick second. We will not forget Dave, but let’s take a quick second to talk about the pool. That actually might be some of my core memories of cousin’s. Camp. Uncle Jean’s pool was something we did every year was last year. The first year we didn. So, yeah, everyone’s nodding. I think 24 years.
We went to Uncle Jean’s pool and talk about coming up with games. That’s probably one of my core memories and I think of Cousins Camp, is we came up with so many creative ways to enjoy a pool. I mean, rubber ducks. Who knew who started that? Who Uncle Jean had like what? 70 little rubber ducks sitting in a basket and we just started playing with them.
How did that even come about? I don’t remember. I think that started when your husband started coming. I don’t remember it happening. It was definitely well into it. I kinda remember that one of the can jam cans just kinda haphazardly got tossed either in the pool or on the diving board. And I think it started as just casually just tossing that direction.
Like probably not meaning anything by it, which then just evolved over two, both can jam thought that’s on either side of the pool. I’m a pool floaty. And then launching them back and forth to see how many you could get. It actually was remarkably fun. It was. We did it every year for a lot of years.
Special. Can we also do it where people would like jump off the diving board and you just try and pelt people with rubber ducks? Yeah. I feel like we tried to do that and you tried to catch ’em as well and all that. Don’t forget the Christmas duck bonus point. Oh right? Yes. See yeah. How seasonal. So seasonal you got a couple points for scoring a Christmas duck.
Yeah. So there were these rubber ducks with like this one had a present on the bottom. How’d they get so many rubber ducks by the way? Where do you get rubber ducks? I’m just not realizing where would they even have gotten such a, Rubber ducks are us. Yeah. Hmm. Ducks. Merry christmas.com. Rubber bulk.com Sounds like a website nobody should visit.
Probably. It’s not actually. Speaking of throwing things and catching things. Nice transition. I remember the one year at the pool. John, did you take a video of it? Actually, I would love to include that. Do you remember the one year we spent literally the entire time we were throwing the ball back and forth?
Do you guys remember that? Like we all lined up on different sides of the pool and there was like a ball and it was our mission to like, Dave’s not, yeah, you guys are all nodding. I can’t remember the spike ball. Yeah, it was, yep, it was the spike ball and then our goal, we would throw it back and forth while jumping in and the goal was to get through everybody without dropping it.
Am I remembering that right? Yeah. We had like a system around. The pool I think. And we were just trying to shove it from one section to the, to the other. I think there might be a video somewhere. I’ll have to check. It was actually pretty impressive cuz there was quite a few of us and we were catching it while jumping and then you had to get rid of it while you were still midair.
So catch and get rid while you still midair. We should be asked grandma, grandpa, the ones that had to sit and watch us for two hours. All right. Dave, what about you? Yeah, I loved all the activities that we did off the farm, mini golf, but really my most memorable moments have been like on the farm itself.
And I specifically remember. Playing kick the can. It’s been a couple years since we’ve done that, but it was one of my favorite games. It was also one of Danielle’s favorite games as well. And then also our, like, our, uh, infamous kickball games as well. I really enjoyed the, uh, the kickball games and now just playing spike ball and now this trend of playing volleyball almost every time.
The camp now, as we get older, we get some really good competitive games going, so just really the, the games that we play on the farm have just always been constant and really, really fun. And then of course, the, one of my favorite meals was actually the hot dogs and hamburgers that Grandpa Wood make and we’d eat in the farm.
That was one of my favorite meals that we had together in the homemade ice cream. Yes. And the homemade ice cream. Can’t forget that. Yeah, I remember. Oh my gosh. We came up with so many different games. On the farm. And that was something fun. I was saying to grandma and grandpa earlier when I was interviewing them that I think one of the things they did so well is they balanced the serious and the fun because we always had the Bible lessons, which was awesome, but then they were so good.
I’m talking like they’re not sitting right here, you know? But you guys were so good too. It also making it fun and giving that space. And when we got older we talked a little bit about taking away all the cell phones, so for people listening who are like, there’s no way I could take away a teenager’s cell phone.
Do you guys have memories of putting your cell phones in that box and why? I know what I would say, but what were your thoughts about that? Like for people listening who are like, I would love, but my kids are older. There’s no way they’re gonna have fun without their cell phones. What are your thoughts on that?
Because there’s a lot of people listening who I think love this idea, but are a little intimidated to start it with their grandkids, because today, now everything’s on screens. What are your thoughts to that? I didn’t have a cell phone until I was 16 and it was a flip phone, so I didn’t have a smartphone till college, so I already knew how to help.
That’s true. We were older. Yeah. Yeah. Having fun without a cell phone was something that I had already. That’s all I knew. So for me, it didn’t mean anything to put it away for that period of time, I don’t think. Where’s Josh when we need him? Josh, your thoughts. That’s a good point. We were all older, so we had kind of learned that.
I wouldn’t say that by the time I had like a real like iPhone or smartphone, like it wasn’t so much that we had to put it away in a box. It was like, all right, I’m just gonna leave it charging upstairs and yeah, interact with family. I didn’t need it, but. Speak cell phones. It was limiting who got to play the computer games when other people were cleaning out, so, oh, that’s true.
We didn’t just sit on the computer and play that awful pixelated golf game that was rollercoaster. Wanted to play taking tracks off roller coasters and sending people through water.
Oh, rollercoaster. That was good too. Keeping that balance of not having a screen available or TV having a movie night and that was pretty much it. So, I think it speaks to the value of family get togethers in general, even into our adulthood where, you know, every one of us has a smartphone and for better or worse rely on it for work or just in general that even when we were at the cabin a few weeks in, now granted for half of us there, they don’t work anyhow cuz you have no service.
But cousins campus is a good example too in that, like Jonathan said, even when you had a have a smartphone, you’re with your favorite people and the time and the quality of the time you’re spending together is so great that there’s just no need outside of the exception of documenting with pictures or videos, the things that you’re doing, which we may be more inclined to do now as we’re older for our own purposes.
But yeah, it’s so fun. I remember taking Slowmo video of people jumping in the swale. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Oh, if you can find that video, I’ll shoot it to me. I’ll see if I can send it. Yeah, we’ll get it on the YouTube video. Andy, I love that you said that because I literally said, unprompted said that almost word for word earlier when I was interviewing them, because I think the takeaway for even now raising, I mean several of us are, have our own children and or are in the process of becoming parents.
And it speaks to what you just said is from a young age, even when we did have a phone, we were raised with this idea that there’s value in putting them away to be with the people that you enjoy. And because we enjoy being with each other and we value that, there really is intentionality. If we were just sitting at home by ourselves, we would all be a lot more likely to be on our phones for good or for bad.
But when we’re all together, We are very intentional. You see it like we’re all intentional about trying to leave our phone somewhere else while we’re playing games together. If for no other reason, then people will yell at you because you’re on your phone and it’s your turn, which we’ve all been guilty of.
Yeah, it’s brilliant. It’s literally what I, what I said, so that shows. How intentional we all are. We all are about that and just how honest we’re be with people that we like. You know, it’s, yes, I’ve had plenty of coworkers and friends that time with their family’s a chore. It’s something to cross off and get out the way for me, you know?
I think for most people here, especially now that we’re don’t all live in the same place. That is something that we anticipate and look forward too. You never take that for granted. It’s a lot of fun. Yeah. I mean, minus Josh and Daniel, we can leave them behind, but everyone else, yeah. They’re gonna be so mad that they weren’t here.
Oh no. I didn’t write, but I’m gonna still pop in. I’m not taking care cousin. Yeah. What are you. Hi, babe. No, I’m gonna back that up. Coming in late and coming in for as an outsider, even though David didn’t originally want me not to be here. Um, well, what exactly did he tell you, Ahna? Oh, oh my gosh. I can’t remember.
So, Dave and I, I don’t know how many, I don’t even know how many years apart we are, but like Dave was like my little buddy. I, we have pictures of me holding, well, a lot of my cousins when they were newborns cuz I loved the babies. But yeah, we were buddies and I don’t know, like me getting married was, I don’t know, my Aunt Arlene would probably remember better than me, but he was a little upset that everything was gonna change.
I just remember walking, walking in on Aaron. He was on grandma and Grandpa’s computer looking through Facebook and I guess Ahna and Zach’s, Facebook came up and you guys joined, can join your Facebook. And I think I said, I think they’re taking this marriage thing pretty seriously, or something like that.
But Zach turned out pretty. I thought you said that at camp now, Ahna will spend all her time with Zach and she won’t spend time with me. I think that was one of the things you said. And so Zach did a, a good job and 10 years later I’m talking to Dave again for the first time. This is it. Yeah. Yeah. And Zach did a good job of paying, of, of pay, paying a lot of attention to you, David.
I remember. He only hated me for a couple years. No, but back what Andy said, when you guys have already did it, it’s special to come into a family and, and watch culture that had been set by grandma and grandpa where you came here to spend time and enjoy your family. And nothing else was an option. Like it wasn’t, nobody had to be reminded to put their phone away.
Nobody had reminded to like, turn the TV off. It’s just, which did You came in, you hung out. You laughed a lot. Ridiculous nonsense. And then that was it. It was, it was a great weekend and it was culture that had been set that everybody looked forward to. It was fun being able to come into that and see the positive effects that that had had over the years.
Yeah, and to that point, Zach, I think the closest thing to cousins camp for us is the cabin week. And we all go up to our cabin truly in the middle of nowhere for a, you know, more or less for some of us, most of a week around Thanksgiving. And there is no service for the adults who have cell phones to this day.
So we were just there this year and Andy wanted to update his fantasy team and had to go drive up a mountain and sit in a random spot to the cafe. I was hoping he would forget, unfortunately, for Jonathan, because he was playing against Jonathan that week, the tension was high, but we were used to hanging out where we couldn’t even have phones altogether, even as adults when we were used to being on our phones all the time.
And I think it forced creativity. You know, I think about that with my kids now and just looking at our experience and I mean, I know several of you’re in the same boat, but really trying to be intentional about limiting the amount of screens that take up their playtime because it just limits, there’s ways to make fun out of anything.
We are living proof even. Even to this day, we can create games out of any scenario. But we were talking about funny, what is the funniest moment that you can think of, and maybe it’s not just cousins Camp, maybe it’s at the cabin, which actually does make me think of another one that I had not thought of earlier.
Queen Jezebel’s coming to mind. But can you think of a moment that you look back on and is one of the funniest moments that you have? I’ll share one. Let me get it started. I, well, some of, you’re already gonna know what I’m about to say. This was years ago. I. Don’t think I have ever laughed so hard. Maybe only a couple times, but when Ben and I were on the top of that, on the top of that, on the top of that ice iceberg, oh, you should tell it.
Because I think in the years, I don’t even know how accurate my memory is. I don’t Yeah. Anymore of what happened. But Dutch Springs was a place that we went to it as one of our big events several years in a row cuz we loved it. And there’s been multiple memories had there. I know Aaron and Zach shared a special moment there as well.
I could let Aaron share that one. Truly special. But I like, there was this massive blown up iceberg and you climbed up the back of it and then it was in this big lake and then you slid down the front of it and there was this little notch on the other side that would, then your butt would hit it when it like shoot you out.
Ben, what? What struck us? So funny. You and I were at the top and there was some guy climbing up ahead of us that was making us laugh before we even got to the top. He was his own special something. I don’t really remember The scenario was, I don’t, yes. Why were we laughing so hard? I don’t even remember. I remember he made some like tarnish noise before, like he was jump bouncing up and down on the iceberg.
And then the last one, I think he wanted to do one, like one more bounce, then lift off. But he slipped and his feet went out from under him and he made this really weird like Tarzan noise that just cracked us up so much. And then I think I was on top maybe, and you were still climbing and I was trying to help you not fall.
Hold onto your hand. I don’t remember the specifics, but it was pretty funny. Okay. Well Ben also is hilarious, which is part of the problem. And I guarantee you, you are making some sort of snarky comment that was also making me weak and I 100% peed my pants. I peed my bathing suit. I apologize to Dutch Springs, so in sanitary, but oh my gosh, I was dying.
That is definitely one of my, there’s also this saying, in our family we talk about the weakness. And it’s basically representing a moment where we’re laughing so hard that there’s no rational behavior, a moment of weakness. You cannot be held accountable for any behavior when we have the weakness. And I just remember Ben being like, I have the weakness, which made it even harder for me.
That’s one of mine. I have many, but, well, the one, anyone else springs? Who was it that got flipped way out? Was that Josh? Remember? Yeah, that’s, I was gonna say that, that was my story. Who? Who sent him out? Me. He, Josh, got on the blob. I don’t know how else to describe it other than one of those giant inflatables where somebody sits on one end and somebody else jumps from a high point and lands.
The pressure flings the person out. Mm-hmm. And Josh wasn’t sitting close enough to the edge. And so when I jumped, he just went like straight up into the air and I didn’t land. Right. So I felt like right into the water. And I just remember coming up and when I came up I remember hearing Josh smack into the water and I remember looking over and seeing pretty much everybody was on the on the shoreline.
And I just remember seeing everybody like, oh no. Laughing their heads off. I remember that. That was pretty funny. That’s hilarious. I, we had a lot of fun at that place. I have a lot of memories from there. One of my funny moments, this actually something that happened after the fact, also Dutch Springs related grandpa, because we didn’t have cell phones.
And Ethan, partly cuz this was pre cell phones, had a camera and would take pictures all weekend. And then grandma and grandpa would put all those pictures in a book and then give them to us for Christmas to add to a cohesive hole of every year in these pictures. And somehow for a solid three to four year stretch, there would be one picture of me that was just the least flattering picture humanly possible.
And the one Dutch Springs picture took the cake where I was in, I was in position. My stomach was sticking out in such a way that I looked somewhat like my second trimester of a pregnancy. And at simultaneously I was, I think I had my, my finger up my nose, which was like two knuckles deep. And it just was like the way I was standing, like my stomach poking out, my back kind of arched like I looked.
It was special, probably the least flattering photograph of we ever taken, but I remember when we first saw that it got passed around to everybody in the room and we were in tears. And I, I have it here somewhere. I should probably put it on my LinkedIn. You should. You should. Oh Ben, I don’t know if I have this story right, but your pain brought me a lot of laughter.
I, we would shoot water balloons, which is one of my favorite things that you guys would do. Oh my gosh, yes. This is a great water balloons. This was not that long ago. So like you were pretty, you were definitely matured. But I don’t think he had all of his children yet. No. Yeah, I don’t think I was married.
Somebody shot it really high in the air and we were trying to catch him or something and Ben just at the last second decided to try to catch it in his pants. I dunno why you did that. And I think it pretty squarely and yeah, that hurt very hard on something. Ooh, I just remember that. That was funny. Oh, I do remember that.
I think we were all on the ground at the, including Ben. Yes. Well, he has four kids. Children, so it all worked out. Oh my gosh. I do remember that. Well, queen Jezebel is definitely a moment that’ll go down in history. That was at the cabin. But speaking of being able to come up with games out of nothing, that’s like a perfect example.
Do you guys remember the scenario there? I remember what happened, but I don’t know that I remember what led up to it. I don’t remember the game. I think we were playing. I think we were playing, go ahead, David. We were playing like mom and dad, I think. Yeah. Which Explain. Explain mom and dad to every. You know, that’s a good question.
It sounds absolutely absurd, but we’d have like mom and dad in the hallway and everyone else would be in the bunk room. And I think if you were on the floor of the bunk room and they came in, they could like tackle you or like, and spank you. And so you would have to like climb up in the bunk room and we would usually do this with like the lights off.
And so the one time we just happened to turn the lights on and Andy was just upside down the legs, just swinging back and forth. Cause he, he tried to climb down a bunk room but got stuck between the wall and the bed. That tiny bed in the corner and the roof down. And there’s not a lot of space between the top bunk if you’re going over it, the wall side, not the other side.
And I think, I thought I was either slimmer than I was, or the gap was larger than it was. But I mean, legitimately I was totally stuck and then a panic and this thing was just, Yeah, I was getting crushed. Oh, what was so funny about that is that all the lights were off. So it really does sound like something that you could get in big trouble for.
It really was not like that, but we would, we would just basically like take each other out if you were not on a bed. I remember being out on the roof, climb the window, and then, and then I came, I think I looked back in and that’s when I saw Andy stuck in the corner. You beside me. Essentially, we had the same angle, and once again, you did pee your pants then too.
A lot of. Yeah, I like urinary incontinence over here. It is funny cuz we were essentially roleplaying like parenthood, which is funny. Like we were the children that were supposed to be sleeping and then two of us would be the parents. And also makes it seem like we were acting off of our own experience, which was our parents storming into our room, spanking us for talking in the middle of the night, which was absolutely not the case.
Speak for yourself, Andy. Yeah, my memory is we played that game of fun. As little kids and then as like not little kids. No, this happened. Not when we were little kids, like we were adults and we’re like, remember the mommy daddy game we used to play? Ha ha ha. We should do that again. And try and reenact that game we used to play.
It’s possible we were playing with my oldest kids. We were reenacting it with your young children because the game was that whoever the youngest cousins were, once again, usually Jonathan and I, for quite some time, no one wanted to be the law. No one wanted to be the cops or the parents. So felt odd, but I think we were reenacting it with the new generation of little kids.
Yeah. Where they were supposed to be putting us to bed. We were supposed to be all quiet and they’d turn out the lights el That’s the story we’re going with. Yeah. No, I, I think that’s right. Yeah. We would start making a lot of noise, but like bang, crawling out on the roof, uh, like getting spanked by little children and Andy getting stuck between a bunk bunked and the wall happened in full adulthood.
Oh my God. Yeah. I would’ve circum.
Oh my gosh, that is definitely one that stands out. I know. I’m trying to think of other ones. Mine actually, I think it was cousin’s camp, but I’m not 100% sure. Also has to do with Ben getting hurt. We decided to like explore parts of the property we didn’t normally go in and one of those moments involved going down to the basement of the farmhouse.
Oh, oh my gosh. Yeah. And all the lights were out in the basement and there was like six of us sprinting down as fast as we could, which I explain grandma and grandpa’s basement to everybody. There’s a couple stories in their basement. It’s more like a cellar. Yeah. I mean it’s old, old. Hundreds of year old basement and there’s all of these, you know, the ceiling is high and then it’s low and then there’s all these odd shapes and angles of the rooms, these ancient sellers.
And I don’t know if Ben had tried to sneak down early before us, cuz he wanted to scare us as we came down cuz it’s pitch black without the lights on. But from our perspective, all I knew is I was all excited to like go on an adventure. And there’s multiple layers of the cellar too. And it’s kind of spooky in these, these big holes in the wall, you can crawl under the house.
And I’m young-ish and so excited to go explore this space and we’re all yelling and talking and giggling and running down in the dark. And we just hear this. Like a, and it reverberated because it was an air duct, giant metal air duct. And, but we didn’t know that. All I knew as a kid is there’s this loud metal ringing and someone turns on the lights and we’re all standing on the stairs and Ben is laid spread eagle on the ground right beneath this huge metal air duct that drops down right where you walk.
And he sprinted, head hurst into it cuz he didn’t pitch black and we, we didn’t even know he was down there. Oh my gosh. I do remember that. I’m pretty positive I peed my pants then too. Yep. I never heard that. No, we didn’t know that. Oh my gosh. I don’t think that was cousin’s camp. We, we were just hanging out at the farm for some reason and why, what we were doing.
I don’t even know. I think yeah, explore it. I remember exploring the barn before that. I do remember that. That was hilarious. We would take barn walks too. I remember that. We’d do that sometimes over Cousins’s camp. Yeah, that might have been, do you remember that Aaron Barn walks? I think that was, do you remember that Emily or Jonathan?
Yeah, we would do that, yes. Sort of. Yeah. Cuz I think it was maybe the slightly older ones that remember doing that and more with I, I remember sprinting out because a creature was crawling around Yeah. With farm equipment one time and it scared us. Yeah. We would take barn walks through their. In the, like at night, it’s a good thing none of us fell through the floor.
Okay. Last thing that I just want to give opportunity for anyone to say, what have you taken away, lessons you have learned? Maybe it’s cousins can’t, maybe it’s just generally speaking, our experiences growing up together. What have you taken away that you have either wanted to apply to your own life or you want to apply to your kids’ lives now or in the future?
You can be as specific as you want to. Oh, wait. Emily’s sharing. David, did you ever share your favorite memory? I guess I didn’t. No, but, oh, the bane of being the youngest. Yeah. Um, it just happened to be with Ahna and her driving skills with the golf cart. I think this was cousin’s camp, but we definitely hit a max capacity on that golf cart at times and spin through a lot.
But I just vividly remember being in the passenger, I think, and a bunch of people were on the back, a couple people in the front and Otto was driving and I think, I can’t remember exactly what we hit, but it threw just about everyone off. And somehow I ended up on the bottom pile of this and I just vividly remember that.
And I feel like we talk about it every single cousin’s camp. Oh, I did feel very bad about that. Yes. I can specifically remember one bump that we would always try to hit that one section of the barn. For years there was like a big divot in the ground and when they were real, what’s really sad is that’s not the first time I threw them off, which is embarrassing, but like when Dave was really little, I think all the boys were on it, and I was driving and I made a really sharp, which you guys loved.
And then of course I threw you all off and traumatized you for life. Yeah. And I think then they all piled on you too. Aw. Yeah. Sorry Dave. It’s all right. He only needed a couple years of counseling after that. Well, on that note, what would you or not want to take? From those years. Anything specifically that you can think of?
I would just say for me, I mentioned this a little bit, but I think it’s blending the careful tension of serious but fun. I think we’ve lost that. I think especially as we get older, as a parent, it’s easy for it to almost fall to one extreme or the other. As a parent, it’s like you just wanna be all fun and friendly, but not have the serious element to the real life stuff that you don’t feel like talking about.
On the flip side, it’s easy to be all business and serious and lose. The fun. And I just feel like grandma and grandpa, you guys did a really good job of blending the two. You wanted us to know that we were loved, that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and you were very intentional. But then I think you also, we wanted to hear what you had to say because you were so good at having fun, frankly.
And so we’re like, oh, if loving Jesus means this much laughter and this much fun, like, Hmm, tell me more. I as a kid, that I think was really poignant for me, and you modeled that very well. And I have often thought, I think heaven, if Jesus were with us, we would laugh a lot more than we do currently. And I often think of our time together as a family, as a model of that.
So that’s one of my big things. More laughter. Simply say finding the time. Finding the time to get together. You know, like as it stands, we have family now that would’ve been a part of cousins camp in four different states, eight grandchildren, four, about to be five cousins married you. People working full-time over the summer, people not like yet.
Despite all of those things, we’re still very deliberate about finding, even if it’s two or three days to still spend time together. And it’s really remarkable when I think about how many years, you know, into my thirties now, I’ve been able to be a part of this and we’ve all been be able to part of it.
And grandma said so many times, she would’ve never, ever, ever guessed that this is something we’d still wanna be doing every single year. There’s a power in that and it speaks to what you just shared also. But yeah, I think that’s pretty special. So that being said, I think part of what I’ve learned from it is for anyone else, it’d be interested in doing something like this.
We just gotta find a way to make it happen. Cause once you’re there, it’s fantastic. It’s just been willing to fit the pieces of the puzzle together to make it work. Yeah. I’ll kind of build off of what Andy said there. Just kind of was thinking of this and. You know, going back to my favorite memory being the IMAX theater and just planning out three days and grandma and grandpa, just the planning and the intentionality that went into it.
There wasn’t easy access to a cell phone to find out local events. Like I don’t even know how you found out about, you know, the Whitaker Center and the IMAX tickets and just every year planning things out, planning the projects out just took a lot of effort and preparation. So I think what I’m taking away is definitely what Andy said, like carving out that time but then like the real discipline to have consistency and creating fun things for us and time and effort that takes and concentration.
Yeah, and to echo Ben’s Echo of the Echo product. Yeah, I think the extended time was a big thing. Like the two nights was a big thing cuz then it allows for the times of seriousness and of fun and I know it. It was big commitment as well as I think of as a parent now, like how nice that would’ve been for how that would be for the parents of, you know, all of our parents to have that time to connect in their own marriages and have, uh, times to do things without kids.
And, but the extended time allowed us all those moments of just hanging out and having good convers. And then learning more about God and having a good context to talk about spiritual things, which can come unnaturally as you’re going through middle school and high school and you’re in public school and it’s just not really something you do with your friends is talk about God.
So learning how to do that in a safe context of your house, grandpa and grandma was, um, was really, I. And something we didn’t really touch on, but the creative side of things. I’m not a very artsy guy, but having the projects was also time for us to talk and connect and, and just, uh, have fun by seeing what each other were gonna create.
Or, uh, when we would carve off shavings of the wood around the mirror, like three of us stabbed ourselves. So that was fun too. Um, having that moment of, you know, creativity with the, and the books used to do grandma, but then like athletics as well, and then like events. So you like mixed it up very well to hit all of our kind of giftings and have us experience it together.
So the amount of time was what I appreciated the most. You also can’t forget, uh, Andy’s haunted house, birdhouse. Dear Disappointment. Very special project. I’ve always been a doctor. Yeah, I mean, always easier for you guys to see each other cuz you know, y’all lived. Roughly what, 30, 40 minutes with within the same radius or something.
So I mean, you know, you guys always got to see each other on like Sunday dinners or something like that. But for me, and eventually Josh, like cousins camp was one of the main events that we ever got to see and hang out with you guys. And so I think that’s where I, you know, I got to build a lot of my relationship with all of you without Cousins Camp or you know, I guess the cabin or Christmas, which we weren’t always there for, you know, without cousins camp.
That was the consistent, that was the way I got to go hang out and throw Josh off the blob or trade football cards with Emily. At one point, I remember Aaron gave me Jevon Curtis’s phone number cuz a friend of his found it or like overheard it. That was one of my favorite things. I hope you didn’t call that number.
That definitely was. I never did. I was too afraid. I was too afraid. Like what would you say to him? Maybe I should check. Maybe it’s still in my context. I guess that’s still piggybacking off of time, but I mean, legitimately that was. I guess the foundation for a relationship with all of you is, uh, was cousins camp.
Mm-hmm. For a random time, Aaron and Ben came down to Piney Flats. Uh, that was fun. I remember flying to Hilton Head that one year and then going over to Tennessee. Oh my gosh. I forgot. Was that was like a week long and we weren’t even planning, at least, I think Ahnana and Emily you were, but I think Erin and I, David, I think you were too young.
I did. Sorry. Yeah. I don’t think Daniel and Daniel went kind of last minute. You’re like, oh yeah, we’re going to Hilton Head and thing. I think it was last minute for all of us. Oh, was it? Okay. I think it was right. I think it was very last minute for all of us. I don’t remember that being planned. Yeah. That was amazing.
Yeah. You guys show up in your private jet and you’re like, Hey, we’re taking all the cousins to Hilton Head. We’re like, all right, sign us up. That was a really sweet memory. And then we ended up at your house. That was, that was fun. And Ben’s escaping in your Cape. I was gonna say where we made the film and Ben was in the Bible.
Man Cape playing the piano. We are so easily entertained. I love it. Not much has changed. Emily, what was yours? Sorry. One of the things for me, well, I was gonna definitely say the shop and the, because grandpa, when I got older would sometimes ask some of my advice or. My input on, Hey, should we do this project or this project?
And I got to see a picture of, we talked about time. I mean, it took a really long time to plan those projects, cut out all the pieces, get all the supplies set up the works stations. I mean, we were like Santa’s little elves in there with, I was like, things were labeled and we were assembling as young kids too, in some cases.
Fairly complex pieces, like a full on bird. That took a lot of time for him to do so I got to see the planning end of that as I got older a little bit, which turned into me starting some of my own projects in my own time at the shop, which turned into me and grandpa making full pieces of furniture together, converting an old handicapped shuttle van into a camper van.
Together we developed this sort of project relationship where I’ve come over and, I mean, yeah, the projects got as big as a whole camper van. So he instilled in me a love for crafting and creation with those projects. But I loved also on grandma’s end that she always got us involved in cleaning. The meals and preparing the meals.
So we had little like chore charts of who was in charge of, and as we got older, who was in charge of DeVos in prayer, and who was in charge of cleaning up the meal, who’s in charge of setting it up? Who was in charge of making it, depending on your age, what year it was. So getting us to take some ownership and get really involved in the process too.
So I think that meant a lot to me, you know? Go ahead Dave. Yeah, I just being one of the younger cousins and joining, you know, a little later, but I just remember vividly receiving my first invitation through the mail and just being so excited. Oh yeah. Can you touch on that for a second? Because that made me laugh.
Every year grandma would send us invites till we were like 20 years later. Mm-hmm. We were still getting invites in the mail. Yeah. Can you remember what it would say? Flower. Yeah, said the same thing every I remember. I just remember at the bottom saying, no cell phones. I vividly remember that part. And then I tucked that card into our picture book and so I have to go find my picture book, but I’m sure I have so many, uh, invitation cards in, in that binder.
But yeah, just being so excited. And then also towards the end, the water balloon was always, the water balloon shooting was. Always one of our, like our last things that we did. And so I loved it, but I also hated it because I knew that meant cousins camp was around just, uh, wrapping up. And so just like the first couple of cousins camps that I’ve been a part of, I remember just like crying.
Cause uh, I just wanted to like, make it last longer, but just, yeah, the work that grandma and grandpa put into these projects and devotions and yeah, just speaking as one of the younger cousins, and I’m sure I can speak on Josh’s behalf as well, of just the, um, the mentorship and being able to look up to older cousins that follow the Lord and that have been instilled in them.
That’s just been such a huge impact and great thing for me and still is to this day. Getting together with my cousins, um, my older cousins and just seeing their walk with the Lord has been extremely impactful. Aw. Group virtual hug, grandma and grandpa. What do you have to say to all this? Well, love every one of you.
Oh my. Thank God for every one of you, we pray for every one of you, every day, every day. We’re proud of each one and the life that you live your love for the Lord, and, uh, you’re eager for life and to do what you’re involved in, what you’re doing, your job or whatever. We just appreciate every one of you and thank God for each one.
Well, we’re grateful for you, grandpa. You have any last words of wisdom? Well, you know what I said before and uh, this is an easy question to answer. Because the joy, just to reflect back over the 26 years we had you cousins together and to see their goal and values in life today, that’s precious. You love the Lord in what you do, the way you live and some of you are married and the way you’re conducting your lies before the, your children laying a good, solid Christian foundation.
That’s wonderful. And uh, hey, I’m 90 years old and I have great joy looking back over when you guys are four years old and now where you are today. That’s great. That’s wonderful. And uh, very thankful and I thank God we are too. I feel like there should be a tug you last sort of situation that we should be able to do here.
We always enjoy it. Everybody comes back. It seems like it’s not hard for you to come and that’s. That’s beautiful. Well, we are very grateful for all of your many, many years. And yes, the tug you last is the way that we always round out stuff. Every time that we leave grandma and grandpa’s home. Growing up, grandpa would literally reach out and grab you and be like, tug you last.
And then the goal was to get out to the car right after you tugged him, before he could get you. And for years, you, I don’t know if you remember this, you would throw stuff into our car. Do you remember that Andy? When we would leave, dad would roll down the window and you would inevitably show up last minute, you’d tug us and then you’d throw leaves and like sticks and stuff into the car and that was your tgy last.
We were in the car and we couldn’t do anything about it. And now our kids do it with them. So this is a Tgy last moment, but now think where you are. It’s your turn to do the same thing with your families as you have family and grow up. It’s a challenge for you guys, each one of you in the days ahead of you.
Yeah. Go before your families. Yep. Yep. Well, we love you. Love you too. We love you all. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I would love to hear your thoughts from today, head to your preferred podcasting platform, and give the show an honest review and let me know what you think. Remember, you cannot be redefined, only redeveloped, one imperfect day at a time. Your story matters and you are loved.