A Kitchen Conversation: kousins

How do you bid adieu to a house? A house that has been a part of your life from day one. A house that is the very blood in your veins. A house that you thought would always be there to go back to whenever you pleased. A house so beautiful it makes you jealous to think another family will be living there soon. Too soon.

My heart will break into little pieces on July 31.

That uneven brick driveway, the oversized azalea bushes out by the street, the rarely-used front door, the huge backyard that once housed Pop's vegetable garden, the tree I would swing from in the side yard, those times when there would be close to ten cars parked in the driveway and out in the yard, the time I found a baby garden snake slithering through the grass attempting to not be seen, the crunch of the leaves under your feet on Halloween night, the frogs that were always hanging around the side door, the outdoor phone on top of the refrigerator, the croquet set in the corner of the garage, the patio Pop constructed himself, the mornings we would sit out there and smell the Crosby air.

There are so many things about that house I'm going to miss, and I know everyone in my family feels the same. It has been a sweet, untouchable symbol and foundation for our family for over 50 years, and it's going to be so hard to let it go when July 31 is upon us, but we'll always have the memories and the pictures of all the wonderful times spent in that little house on Nightbird Trail.

Oh boy, Kousins' Kamp! Where to begin? Back in 2008, my mom got this great idea called "Cousins' Camp" from her friend Jenelle. It's basically a family reunion sans the creepy, distant relatives you've never met before that like to pinch your cheeks and chat about how big you've gotten...and without (most of) the drama that comes with large family gatherings. So on my mom's side of the family, we decided to make Cousins' Camp an annual thing (as long as we could manage it) and we changed the C's in Cousins' Camp to K's because most of the Kitchen family has K names - My mom is Kary and her sisters are Kim, Kelley and Kandace. Kelley's kids are Keller and Kirby. Kandace's kids are Kody and Kaylie, and my mom has me (Kassie) and Kaleb. The odd balls without K names are Esther, Sarah, Abigail and my sister, Micah. I should have made a flow chart for better understanding, huh?!

I am basically obsessed with that side of my family. I love how close-knit we all are and how supportive and loving everyone is toward each others, in most cases. Our family, as a whole, has been through a lot together, lots of highs and lows, yet we've all stuck together and provided that shoulder to lean on in all situations. Sure, we have our disagreements about lifestyle choices, religion and politics, but what's so great about us, is that we do have so many differing opinions on important matters, but we all still love and cherish each other despite everything. We Kitchens are a force of nature.

Anyway, back to the Kamp. Our first Kousins' Kamp was in 2008, the second in 2009, the third in 2010 and the fourth was this past weekend. They have all been at Nana's house in Crosby, our sanctuary, the one place that ties all of us together. That big barn house cradles many precious memories and has plenty of room for more to come.

In past Kousins' Kamps, we had more events and activities like various outdoor races, obstacle courses, hands-on cooking, scavenger hunts and more. This year, we relaxed the schedule a little and did more catching up, chatting and reminiscing past gatherings. We still had Krafts with Sarah; we decorated picture frames to hold pictures from Kousins' Kamp as a sort of souvenir. We did some line dancing out in the driveway, played a few thousand rounds of Yahtzee and Scattergories, watched home videos, played croquet out in Nana's big front yard, made ice cream sundaes, ate our traditional Kitchen family foods - chicken spaghetti, taco soup and, of course, Velveeta & Rotel cheese dip! We even had a bit of a war - the elder and wiser females vs. the psychotic teenage boys attempting to attack us with twirling rifles and batons from the 1980s all in order to protect the large flat screen TV they stole from the living room so they could watch their inappropriate movies in the upstairs bedroom. Tsk tsk.

Sadly, the weekend had to end a little early for some. Esther, Sarah, Abigail and Aunt Kim left Sunday night so Esther could fly out to Florida the next morning, and Kaleb and Keller both had football practice early Monday morning. Yesterday afternoon, the fun family-filled weekend came to an official close with the ultimate finale of delish butter burgers at Culver's with my Mom, Micah and Kirby.