What A Weekend Part 3 ~ The Cousin Connection!

Last, but certainly NOT least, after the Awana Derby/Float-a-Boat, we cleaned up and went home for a couple of hours. Then we loaded up the karaoke equipment and headed to the Kelly Inn in S.C. for the "Cousin Connection" get-together. I did catch a bit of a nap on the 40 minute drive there.

The idea for this whole thing came about when my cousin, Marty and my sister Kathy put their heads together and decided that all of us first-cousins needed to get to know each other again. After all, we used to hang out together as kids, and even though most of us still live in Minnesota, we barely know each other anymore.

The above picture is Marty, Kathy and my sister Laurie, who saw to it that we had door prizes. I can't remember which one Marty won here though. They had a prize for the couple that was married the longest, (Cindy and Dan), the one who came the farthest, (Mona from Rochester), the ones with the most kids, (Don and Shawn who just had child number 7 last week), the ones that got their first, (us because we set up the karaoke). There were also prizes for the oldest, (Sue's bf Denny), and the youngest, (Bob's wife Rose). Actually, neither the oldest (Peggy) nor the youngest (Laura) were there. Coincidentally, they share a birthday TODAY and are exactly 18 years apart! Happy St. Patty's Day Birthday to BOTH of you!

First of all, there was a "social hour", here's a bunch of people being "social".

Next we had a Pizza bar from "Green Mill" next door.


After dinner, we started singing karaoke. I was glad to see that we "Felix kids" weren't the only ones participating. There are a lot of talented singers in the entire Lansing clan!

Here's Cindy's hubby, Dan. He's a very good singer. Well, at least Cindy thought so! Just kidding, he really was a great singer.

Here's Don, Mona and Sarah singing "Too-ra-Loo-ra-Loo-ra" -that's an Irish Lullaby. I guess they were trying to put us all to sleep.

I think this one was, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling". Can you tell there's a bit of Grandpa Donald's Irish blood running through all of our veins? We toasted him, and also did a toast to our two "St. Pat's". We lost our Sister, Patty to breast cancer almost 6 years ago at age 43, and sadly, our cousin Patrick just passed away in February of a melanoma skin cancer at the age of 51. I'm pretty sure their "Irish Eyes" were smiling down on all of us that night.

Here's my brother Bob, trying to find his lost shaker of salt:

A little later on, my cousin Sarah had a brilliant idea. She thought it would be fun to have EVERYONE, (in-laws and outlaws included), run from one end of the room to the other and line up in order of age. There was to be no talking during this exercise, and we'd just see how well we did. Actually, it was kinda fun...and we weren't too far off. We had already established who was the oldest and youngest there. We just had to find our place in the whole scheme of things.

Here we go, from Rose and Kathy, (who are still 39 and "holding")...

to Joyce, Marina, Donny, Fuzz, Susette, Jenny, Mike, Sherry, Lori, Jill, Bob...

...Doug, Tracy, Sarah, Randy, Don B., Connie, Steve M., Cindy and Marty, (who are all 40-something)...


To Mona, Jim B., me, Dan, Tom, Joe Walsh (Marina's hubby), Sue, Dan E. Steve S., Laurie, Ray and Denny P. who all range in age from 50-55 years old, believe it or not. We did end up having to do a little bit of switching during the picture taking, so I'm not sure if I got everyone here.

Eventually, my camera sort of ended up as the party camera, people were picking it up and snapping pictures...which was fine, I just had no idea what I was going to find on it! I guess I should have warned them that if I find it on my camera, and it's "bloggable", it just might end up here for all the world to see. I'm not really sure what this one was all about, what was this, Jill?

Peek-a-Boo??

After a while, the crowd thinned out and a lot of people went home. We had decided to stay, we were at a hotel after all. We ended up hanging out in Cindy and Dan's room until 3AM! Security only had to come and tell us to quiet down once. Dan said the guy had his taser drawn! Cindy said that if they came back again, she was going to tell them, " Oh, thank God you're here, I've been trying to get these people to leave for hours!" We did have a LOT of fun, and then Sunday morning, good ol' cousin Marty had arranged for a poolside breakfast buffet for those that stayed or wanted to come back for it. We all had a great time, even though I ended up sleeping most of Sunday away trying to recover from the approximately 5 hours of sleep I'd gotten in the previous 48!

Anyway, a good time was definitely had by all, and we've decided to not only make this an annual event...we're going to plan a Summer get-together too! So all y'all cuzins that live a "fur piece" from the rest of us, can make plans to attend the next one. Thanks for all you did to make this thing happen, Kathy and Marty!!!