Cousin Reunion

We just had the opportunity to participate in a cousin reunion. Sometimes several of us get together for just a lunch. But more frequently, four of us get together as least once a year and meet to catch up on family news, share family recipes, and get away from it all. We have stayed at someone’s house (one of us four, not just a random someone), stayed in a hotel, and on this occasion we rented an adorable vacation house in Cripple Creek for the weekend.

The cousins that my sister and I met are my double-cousins. I don’t know if that is a legitimate genealogy term describing relationships or if we made that up. But my father’s brother married my mother’s sister. So we call them double cousins.

Of course one of the most satisfying elements of these reunions is the food. We were able to share homemade fermented pickles, Hochzeit schnapps, kuchen, and borscht. Sometimes we experiment with new recipes and sometimes we share old family recipes. It was a weekend of culinary deliciousness.

It was very interesting to discover the differences in the food between the two families. Their mother made their kuchen with sweet dough, while our mother eventually went to Rhodes Dough. Their mother cooked blachinda (a savory pumpkin and dough dish) but our mother never made it.

Another conversation involved the family medical history. Certain conditions and diseases seem to run on different sides of the family. We felt it was important to take note of these trends even among the cousins as they will be important to future generations, including our own children.

We also had the opportunity to take part in the some of the sights Cripple Creek has to offer. We rode the Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad on its last day of the season. Who knew that there is still a trillion dollars worth of gold in ‘them thar hills’?

We had a lovely weekend, retold stories, shared adventures and created new memories.

Mini-Reunion

A couple of weeks before that, my brother, his wife and son, were in town and we held sort of a min-reunion. It’s been a number of years since all four of us siblings have been able to get together. This time, a number of the nephews and nieces were able to attend. (I’m third from the left.)

I treasure the opportunity to keep those bonds strong.
What are you doing to build stronger bonds between families in your tree?

Please join me for future posts including “Do You Have Politicians in Your Tree?” and German-Russians in the Holocaust”.