A weekend with Charlie Mack's Granddaughters + one

Since I started a discussion about family yesterday, I'm going to tell you about the plans I've made with my cousins for July. Last December, my sister and I came up with the idea of getting our cousins together for a girls' weekend, which we'd like to be an annual event. I got the idea from one of my male cousins, who has a guys' weekend with some of his friends and male cousins every year.

My Grandma Charlie Mack had 10 granddaughters (and 2 grandsons), so when we get together it's always a party. We were all really close as kids, spending almost every weekend at each other's houses or visiting grandma in North Carolina during our spring and summer breaks and having big slumber parties. As we got older, we lost some of that closeness. My cousins moved away and eventually life events like marriage, kids, and work made our interactions more and more sporadic. We now mostly see each other at the occasional family reunion or holiday, but we never get to spend any real time together. I'm hoping our annual cousins' weekend will change all that.

Since my sister recently moved to a big beautiful house in Atlanta, which none of my cousins have seen, we've decided to make HOTlanta our first cousins' weekend destination. We only have two rules for our weekend: NO KIDS and NO MEN. This weekend is strictly for the ladies. We're planning an old fashioned slumber party, a shopping spree, lunch or dinner at an upscale restaurant, and maybe even a night out at a trendy hot spot. I can't wait for July to get here. I've been so pleased by my cousins' responses. We are all so excited and already contemplating locations for next year.

We're going to have a ball!

Oh, and even though my "favorite" cousin Tiff Tiff is NOT one of Charlie Mack's granddaughters, she's coming too. We couldn't have a cousins' weekend without her.

P.S. The ladies in the photo are me (2nd from right) with some of my cousins. Aren't we BEAUTIFUL? I just love them!