Hanging with the adults, do you know where your children are? COUSIN TIME!

Growing up as a child, there's that special time - something you never really talk about with your friends at school because it was different - and special.  Cousin time.

Some of our best friends we acquire by blood, others by thinned blood, and others not by blood, but those blood relatives that you see on those specific times of year are the best bonds that are always unbroken.  Cousin times are when you get the exotic nature of people that don't live where you live BUT they have to accept you because you are related by BLOOD, and there's no one else to play with if they don't.  It's these times that the adults gather and possibly add a highball or two and talk like adults and let their children play because it's cousins, it's a safe and fun area for children.

Little did they know that we were putting together concoctions of hotsauce and Mayonaise for the little kids to drink, or making the two "kissing cousins" actually kiss whether they liked it or not.  Now, it's "Nasty Soup" complete with a few sprays of gold paint into the bucket (luckily not in anyone's face).  Ever played the game of "Fart?"  There's always those types of cousins:  the one that always gets hurt, the one that's sensitive, the one that comes up with the ideas, the one that enjoys providing the muscle, the one that hangs out with the adults.  jokes are made up, bad words are taught but you can't mistake the love and affection between these kids forever tied together by blood.

As they grow, the strange concoctions may turn into texting each other, the kissing cousins may not speak to each other for years, but the bond formed by these times as they are young will remain forever.  Years later as an adult when I see my cousins, there are many things that we laugh about, a few secrets (those fireworks) we'll keep still but we always pick right up from where we left off.  We laugh about bending all the pots banging them together on New Year's Eve, about riding mini bikes up the hill, about "Smear the Queer" and running through the Peach Orchards saying, "I think I hear the dogs coming."

Good times always start and end with family, especially when you're a kid and it's "Cousin Time."  What memories do you have of cousin time?