“Coach, I have to go early today,” I told my coach.

“That’s fine, just make sure you remember.”

So, I had to play a whole practice thinking about my cousins. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I would sprint off the field into my dad’s car and tell him to speed to the airport.

I can’t explain the feelings I have today. My closest cousins had moved to England about 5 months ago, and that was pretty tough for me. My best friend and cousin Pierce was the oldest in that family, with three siblings. They lived closest to my family out of anybody in my family. So what I’m trying to say is, I miss them a lot.

It was a cold December night, but I was filled with warmth. I was on my way to the airport, to pick up my cousins once they got off the plane. Of course, I wanted to get there so fast that we got there about 2 hours early. This, of course made me more impatient and ready to see them. I was hoping they were as excited as I was, because I couldn’t wait to see them.

“When are they going to be here, dad?”

“I called your uncle Kevin and he said that their flight was expected to land at 10:00 PM. Right now it’s 8:06. You’ve got some waiting to do.” My dad explained.

“Great, two hours of patience,” I said sarcastically. Obviously, patience wasn’t one of my strengths.

Wow, I was tired. I found a bench and started to think of things that we could do when they got here. Trips to each cousin’s house, like a tour of New Jersey and New York for 2 weeks. It was almost Christmas and they were planning on spending Christmas with us. After that, we’d go to the party, and probably stay there for a day or two. We would keep circling throughout all of the families until everybody got to see the cousins they missed evenly.

“Aidan!” My cousin Connor shook me awake.

“Ughhh, good morning.” I responded without thinking.

“Silly, it’s 9:30 at night!”

Connor was 6 years old. He was just as excited as me to see our cousins. Two of the kids were around his age, so he was pretty psyched. He held a bag of m&m’s in his hand, so that probably also contributed to his excitement.
“I can’t wait for them to get here!” Connor yelled for the whole place to here. I figured everybody here understands as they were waiting for people as well.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be pretty great.”

“First, we’re going to go to a NutCracker play, and then we’re going to build a snowman, and then we’ll drink hot chocolate and watch a movie.” He obviously had this all planned out.

To be honest with you, I still had no idea what the older kids were going to do during the 2 weeks they were here. My thinking was cut short by Connor screaming, “THEY'RE HERE!!!”

Connor and me ran up to them. Opening my arms, I exclaimed, “Hug me, brotha!” This was a line from our favorite show, “Drake and Josh.”

“What’s up Americans!” My younger cousin Ciaran said.

“We have a lot to catch up on, for sure,” I said.