Reconnecting with Extended Family

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Good morning (it's 7:46am here as I begin). How are you all? Today, I want to talk about family. Where does 'extended' family begin? I'd consider my parents, siblings, husband, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews as 'immediate' and then cousins, aunts, uncles, and beyond as extended. I don't know if that's the correct official definition. I do know that the people I generally refer to as 'second cousins' (my cousins' children) are, in fact, first cousins once removed. A second cousin is the child of your parent's cousin. Anyway, that sort of thing can get quite complicated, especially when there are several generations. I now mostly refer to all of them as cousins or second cousins unless I need to be specific. I have 16 first cousins. 15 of them have children of their own. At least 3 of my first cousins have grandchildren, and one has great grandchildren... As I'm sure you can imagine, it's not easy to keep in touch with all of them. Some are a lot older than me so I didn't grow up with them. Recently, I've tried to keep in touch with my cousins on my dad's side. Partly because they're closer in age but also because there are only 3 cousins and they have 4 children between them. One of them, I see occasionally but we don't properly keep in touch. One lives the opposite side of the planet. I'll send messages on birthdays and at Christmas, with an occasional hello in between. The third, my youngest cousin, I've spent the last almost 2 years trying to arrange to see her. I'd never met her children, but always send them birthday cards. The last time I saw my cousin was about 7 years ago. We were finally able to make a plan to meet up recently. Cousin and her husband brought their three children to my town and we went to my local park. It was lovely to see them all. My eldest son also came with us and joined in our conversation. He got on with Cousin's husband as they're both teachers (well one teacher and one training to be). I was half expecting awkward silence and not knowing what to say. It wasn't like that at all. My cousin looked beautiful, healthy and happy. Her children were really good. The eldest (he's nearly 5) was showing me some pictures and telling me all about them. He's just started school now. The middle one (he's 2) didn't talk much to us as he was very busy playing. The baby (she's only 8 months) was smiling all the time. We had a lovely time and we're hoping that it won't be another 7 years before we see each other again! On the same day we met them, we went out to a small local music festival. My eldest son and I met up with my sister and her sister-in-law. It was fun, and we saw an old friend of my sister's there. That was last weekend. This weekend, my husband, youngest son, and I will be out for a meal with my sister-in-law (husband's sister), her husband, and their two children. My eldest has gone back up to his university town otherwise he'd have joined us. We're going out to celebrate brother-in-law's 50th (which was a couple of weeks ago). There have been a few big birthdays this year, some that we couldn't celebrate as we'd hoped. Perhaps we'll make up for that next year. It's been nice to be able to spend time with people again. We have some family that we don't see often under normal circumstances as they live too far away, but there are some we'd usually see a lot more. It's usually me making the effort and the plans - I intend to take over from my mother-in-law as Matriarch Do you have a large family? Do you manage to keep in touch with them all or see them often?