There are six girl cousins on my mother’s side of the family. I’ve never heard of the six boy cousins getting together as a group, nor do they all attend every family event, but we girls have so much fun together that we go to extended family events and plan getaways just to see each other. In fact, we identify ourselves as the GCs. Here we are at Lara’s wedding in 1991. (A few of the boy cousins were present, but not all of them.)

Our next full-group gathering was at Aunt Katy and Uncle Gibby’s 50th wedding anniversary party in 1999. (Only two boy cousins were at this family event.)

Although we each see each other at various times, the next time the GCs gathered as a full group was in 2013 when we spent a weekend in Door County Wisconsin. We planned this getaway for the six of us because, as our extended family ages and people move to different parts of the country, large family events don’t happen as often as we’d like to see each other. Not to mention that all of our children were grown up and didn’t need us at home. Here we are on the hallowed ground of Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Go Packers!

While we were shopping in Egg Harbor (Door County), Lara found “our” sign.

Our most recent gathering was this one in early September–the GC-25, which stands for Girl Cousins-2025. Donna and her sister, Nancy, hosted us at Donna’s house in Lake Geneva, WI. On Friday evening we were greeted by the most beautiful charcuterie board I’ve ever seen, arranged by Nancy, who is the definition of “the hostess with the mostess.” She loves hosting parties and making gorgeous food displays. Even better, she’s good at both.

With a glass of wine and charcuterie to eat, the next order of business was to take a group photo. Judi is missing because she took the photo. While we ate, Nancy (waving at the end of the table) kept us laughing with a few party games and the weekend was off to our usual start–lots of chatter and even more laughter!

We started Saturday morning with brunch at Donna’s house and then–what else?–went shopping on the main street of Lake Geneva. The street is lined with boutique shops.

Nancy is deliberately picking her nose to photo-bomb my picture (above). Linda is not in the photo because she’s trying on a pair of jeans. She bought several articles of clothing and, as she tried things on and modeled them, we always took a group vote to decide whether or not she should buy the item. Linda won the prize for most purchases. On Saturday afternoon, she purchased so many things that a shopkeeper asked her if she’d like a large shopping bag that would hold all of her smaller bags. Then, before leaving, we had to return to two stores where she had left purchases that were larger than she wanted to carry for several hours.

Actually, Linda started shopping before she arrived at Donna’s house. As she and Lara (they are sisters and live near each other) were driving from their homes near LaCrosse, WI to Lake Geneva, Linda saw a car at a dealership along the way and stopped to buy it! She has/had two cars–a high-end Porsche and a Mercedes–but a driver made an illegal left turn as Linda was approaching an intersection and the other driver hit her Mercedes, totaling it. She’s been looking for a replacement vehicle, and the BMW caught her eye, so she bought it. She’s widowed, but says she needs two cars because the Porsche tires are over $1,500 each, so she doesn’t like to wear them out on long trips. (The rest of us have never had that problem.) Lara drove the new car the rest of the way to Donna’s house and Linda drove her Porsche.

But back to the shopping . . . We went into a candy store that featured freeze-dried gummies. I took a picture of one. They are very light and fragile. The shopkeeper offered to let us try one and it was delicious! They immediately dissolved in our mouths, leaving the sweet flavor of the gummy. I wanted to buy a bag to bring home, but the shopkeeper said they won’t travel well, which I believe, given how fragile they are and the fact that that were in cellophane bags.

After about two hours of walking, we were ready for a break, so we stopped for a beverage. Left to right, that’s Judi, Nancy, Linda, Donna, me, and Lara. Pay attention to how happy we all look in all of our pictures. We have so-o-o-o much fun together!

Nancy is a hoot and is probably the only one of us who would want her photo taken with a flag-draped bear. We all agree that Donna, Lara, and I are the “good” cousins. The other three–Linda, Nancy, and Judi–are the “bad” cousins. They don’t do anything illegal or immoral, but they are far more daring and extroverted than the “good” cousins. If any of us ever needs to be bailed out of jail, it will be one (or more) of the “bad” cousins. We “good” cousins have agreed to post bail if necessary. Together, the six of us are in perfect balance.

The downtown streets of Lake Geneva are punctuated with hanging flower baskets. Lake Geneva has been a retreat for extremely wealthy Chicagoans since the Gilded Age. One of them (I don’t remember his name) regularly hosted well-known celebrities. Donna (our resident cousin) said that, before the man died, you could be anywhere in town and say, “Is that a look-alike, or is it really Fill-in-the-Blank?” and it was really Fill-in-the-Blank. That man also hosted theme parties and sometimes invited members of the community to attend them. One party had a Wizard of Oz theme, complete with costumes and a yellow brick road. He hired little people to play the role of munchkins. For all of his life, the man was a philanthropist, contributing large sums of money to a variety of community needs. When he died, the man also left a large sum of money to the city, designated to purchase flower baskets like these every year for the central area of the city.

The shopping district ended at the shore of Lake Geneva (yes, the name of the city and of the lake), and we needed another group photo to add to our collections.

Here’s a picture of part of the lakefront. Oh, how I miss the glaciated sand-bottom lakes and rivers of Wisconsin! I never swam in a mud- or rock-bottomed lake until I moved away from Wisconsin. There’s no comparison.

I found a plethora of humorous signs along the sidewalks and in the stores. Here are some of them.

I guess every state needs something to brag about.

It’s no longer true, but when I was growing up in Wisconsin, the legal age for drinking beer was 18, and the legal age for drinking alcohol was 21. As a result, there were “teen bars” for the 18-20-year-olds. Once you aged out to 21, you didn’t go back to the teen bars. You were far too “adult” for that–and you can buy beer in a “21” bar if you want it. The teen bars were rowdy and, on the weekends, were usually filled to the fire code limit with standing room only and a waiting line to enter. The first time I was in a “21” bar, I was amazed at the nice seating (no one standing) and the quiet (you could converse without shouting).

After our shopping expedition, we attended a magic show. As you can see at the stage, there were smoke and mirrors and bright flashing lights. Naturally, we recognized that these are distractions so the audience doesn’t watch the magician’s hands. The theater was built by the magician and his wife (also his assistant when he needs someone to cut in half) and is small by design–only about 150 seats, with no bad seat in the house. It was a very good show, and the magician had a constant engaging patter of talk. Audience members participated in some of the tricks.

Yet another group picture of the GCs. The empty seat is Nancy’s.

After the show, the magician (left) and his assistant wife (right) go to the lobby to sign autographs and to stand for pictures with audience members.

Then it was time for dinner, including Jon and Ted.

Linda, Lara, Judi, and Nancy all traveled alone for the weekend, but Donna’s husband, Jon, lives at her house and Ted was with me for a nine-day trip to visit Wisconsin and Illinois friends and family. Jon and Ted enjoy each other’s company, so they spent the weekend time together. I’m sure they enjoyed that a lot more than listening to the GCs’ constant chatter and laughter. We all have (or had–two of the GCs are widowed) great husbands who like each other. We were talking about our wonderful mates at dinner and decided we needed a toast. We raised our glasses and said, “To our men!”

It was a long and fun-filled day so after dinner, it was time to relax.

The constant talk and storytelling continued, and we definitely exemplified Judi’s belief that “nobody knows your crazy family better than your cousins.” There were so many hilarious stories to tell! My favorites were those about Grandma Drott, Nancy’s and Donna’s other grandma. We all knew Grandma Drott because we all grew up within about 15 miles of each other, and Grandma Drott lived within that radius and was a regular visitor to Nancy and Donna’s home.

At one point, we started talking about the magic show and tried to figure out how the magician did some of the tricks. This is one of them and we had lots of suggestions about how to do it.

I surprised myself by figuring it out, and then we needed a teaching session. Nancy didn’t believe it and started searching Google. I thought magicians’ secrets were never, never, ever shared, but somebody tattled to Google, and the trick worked exactly as I said. Yay for me! Now I know how to perform one magic trick. We also figured out how to do three of the magician’s other tricks–even without Google’s help.

Everyone except Ted and me stayed at Donna’s house. Donna (a “good” cousin) told me she and Jon went to bed after Ted and I left to go to our motel (at past 1:00 a.m.), but the other four had a pajama party before they went to sleep.

From the time Ted and Jon joined the GCs, the two of them hardly said a word because, as I’ve mentioned, the GCs together don’t stop talking or laughing. I apologized to Ted for his having to endure the entire evening with “my” group, but he said it was actually fun to watch us in action. I told Donna this the next morning, and she said the same thing about her and Jon. Yes, we all found wonderful husbands.

We had brunch at Donna’s house again on Sunday morning, and then it was time to leave–but not before taking another group photo.

As all of us were gathering up our things and heading for our cars (Donna and Jon were going to their granddaughter’s soccer game), I heard Jon tell Ted, “Now comes the Lorenzen farewell and that’ll be another half-hour.” Yes, that’s true. (Jon and Ted have been married to Donna and me for many years, and have been through these farewells many times.) Good-bye hugs were followed by more family stories, which then required another round of good-bye hugs followed by another round of stories, followed by . . . You get the picture. It took about a half-hour, spot-on for Jon’s timing, before we got into our cars. As each car left, the driver gave two quick horn toots in memory of Grandpa, who always tooted his horn twice after he backed out of the driveway and started down the road.

We have so much fun together and we look forward to our group gatherings so eagerly that we decided to do this more often. The consensus was that two years will be good, with hostess duties rotating. I was chosen as the next hostess and I’ve already been given a list of activities that the others want to do at GC-27–STL. What a wonderful group we are! Let’s hear it for the GCs!