I never really did any family research before nor did I try to stay really in touch with my cousins. This changed in the past couple of years as we were planning ourselves for a little family and now have our son. I figured since we were about to move to Germany last year it would be nice to get in touch with some of my relatives again. Not only to meet them again but also nice for Nathan to get to know his extended family. Here in Germany I have several cousins with their own little families. Okay, little is the wrong word as one of my cousins has herself now four children, one girl and three boys. Her second oldest child had her 11th birthday and we were invited to spend the day there.
We had been visiting her before so I was already prepared that four children mean also a lot of action going on non-stop. Once we arrived the little girl got her present, and the only guest she had over was yet another cousin (daughter of another cousin I haven’t seen in over ten years). Well, it wasn’t so much a children’s birthday party but more like an adult birthday as the children were either outside playing or in their rooms. We adults were drinking coffee and had some delicious cake in the beginning and later on BBQ. You could really see that my cousin was happy that her daughter was old enough that the parents didn’t have to come up with games and entertain the daughter and her friends as she was basically discovering her main birthday gift: her first mobile phone!Ā Well, even though this meant there was less work on the birthday itself those other children of her surely still had too much energy and were basically everywhere.
Her youngest child is four and tried is best to copy his older brothers when it comes to terms of climbing trees resulting that he fell down. This fall actually created a huge bump on his head that made him appear like a unicorn. After five minutes of crying the world was fine for him again and he continued climbing the very same tree. I can only say that in case I fall down like that and hit my head I would be in hospital for a few weeks! Kids are just crazy when it comes to recover from such things. Nathan enjoyed his time as well by hunting with his 2nd cousins some bunnies, playing with their toys and being thrown around by the oldest boy who just loves little kids.
Even though we were there only for around 4 hours it was still a very exhausting day. Not only because of all the over eating but also due to all the action going on by the kids the entire time.Ā We made also a deal with the little girl that she will be taking care of our bunnies during our holidays in China. Sure, we need to drive those bunnies extra to my cousin’s house but it will give us another opportunity to meet. Perhaps next time there will be other cousins of me as well, who knows. We also talked a bit about a family gathering as the last one was over ten years ago but in the end it will need some person who takes up the “leadership” and plans the whole event. It would be great to meet as a family again but it will probably depends when someone is able to start planning.
How often do you visit your relatives?
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Crazy Chinese Family 
When it’s a party for the kids, it’s certainly a party for the adults. Looks like Nathan didn’t terrorise the other children and fitting in just great. I don’t know about MIL though. She looks way too happy on that swing…I’m sure everyone stared at her doing that.
I don’t visit my relatives that often. Even when I was living in Malaysia and Singapore, it would be around once a month, sometimes two or more months at a stretch. There were relatives on both my dad and mum’s family, so we always had the dilemma of who to visit. These days as I’m living in Australia, sadly it’s once in a blue moon.
Yeah, MIL was a bit creepy, especially when the little boy fell down she wanted to do all kinds of things. His dad however only said “See what happens when you get too brave? Now man up and go play again” š
We never really vsited our relatives in Germany often, perhaps once a year we went to someone and thats about it
I rarely visit my cousins and relatives. When my grandma was still around, she lived with us so it was the cousins who come visiting because my grandma was the eldest in the family to still be alive, for the Chinese you always visit the eldest, not the other way round. They she passed away a couple years ago and the cousins stopped coming. But we got so used to being visited, so we sort of just, remained the same, waiting at home. I think I have not seen most of my relatives for 2 years now.
By the way, did I see the cousin trying to feed Nathan beer??
When we are in China we visited my wife’s Uncle very often as Granny lives with him/ he lives with her š
It does look like beer, doesnt it? But it is just some carbonated juicy something drink but the kids all called it their beer!
Sounds like you had a nice day and good to hear that you get along so well with your new family. I don’t have a lot of cousins, and we don’t have a lot in common, so I only see them very rarely:)
I dont have that much in common with my cousins either. The youngest of my German cousins is 38 or so that makes her at least 10 years older than me and the oldest one ist even 20 years older than me. So from all my closer relatives I am by far the youngest and now we do only have in common that we want a Family reunion and of course because we are parents these days
Happy Father’s Day!
Oh, yes, indeed! I had forgotten already about that, appearently I need to get used to it still
Looks like a fun day & if everyone enjoyed it, I think it’s worth making an effort to keep up the connection. You only live once and children grow up fast. A regular gathering could create lots of happy memories & stronger bonds between you. My family are also spread out around the world, so I guess I’m speaking from the perspective of missing my own family. Anyway, the children obviously have the bunnies in common š
Indeed they got the bunnies in common thus far as yet another cousin of mine got few of them! Anyways I hope I will be able to let them keep relations to each other . I am facing similar troubles as you because I have family here in Germany, in Sweden, inFinland, Russia and Estonia!
Our family has shrunk and people are spread out so I don’t see family often. It’s nice to get connected again though with family, eh? I would love to see my relatives more.
it is pretty nice to meet again after so many years. Most of my cousins here I havent seen in the past ten years š
Happy Fathers day!
I am actually quite close with my cousins who are mostly local and we’re lucky we’re all about the same age. I think being able to grow up with them taught me strong family values.
This sounds great. My family is pretty much spread throughout Europe making it really hard to see each other and furthermore all my cousins are much older than me
Ah! It is always nice to get together with extended family and it looks like Nathan had a blast with his cousins. Your MIL seems to be enjoying herself as well.
I am actually very close with all my cousins and relatives on my mom’s side. My husband and I were in Canada when my cousin got married a couple of years ago and we got to see nearly everyone. It was so much fun to reconnect with everyone. However, I am only close with a couple of cousins on my father’s side.
Ive been more or less close with some of my cousins in Finland due to the holidays we always spent there in my childhood and of course the years living there. These days I grew again apart from them as we moved back to Germany. My family used to be very close with my cousins in Germany but that sadly stoped as their father (my uncle) died suddenly some years ago and with him also the organizer of those family events
We don’t have a big family in Sydney. David has two brothers and his parents. Le has two sisters and her parents. But altogether there are now 8 nieces and nephews and we do see each other’s families often. Le’s family lives within 5-15 minutes drive from one another so we see them a bit more than David’s. And we LOVE watching the kids interact with one another. We both grew up without cousins around so we are loving the family time – it is probably the MAIN reason we could never travel full time OR live abroad.
Lucky that you got relatives so close by. The closest for us are around 1h by car and others even a few days trip away š
Nathan’s OMG face HAHAHAHA!
When I was younger I used to play a lot with my cousins. I have a lot of them! Now I don’t really see them… ever, almost, hahaha.
I never had cousins close by so there was not much to play with them and furthermore they are all much older than me š
Yeah, the best for kids: to play with other kids!