Cousins Camp 2025 is a wrap

2 weeks of Cousins Camp has come to an end. The kids all presented business ideas Shark Tank style to 10 adults. They had 90 seconds to give an elevator pitch seeking capital for startup costs. They subjected to all the typical questions about margins, target market, the problem they are solving and so forth.

I enthusiastically backed 3 startups — an animal cafe where you can hang out with otters (overdue in the US if you ask us), a “we’ll take care of your pets and plants when you’re away” kinda biz, and a Kumon-like school for Financial Literacy. I wasn’t the best bid for that but my niece picked me for strategic reasons — moontower distribution. Smart kid 🙂

The kids range from 9 to 14 so the experience ranged from cute to real. But my favorite part was just how enthusiastic they were all week. They were practicing their pitches, computing costs, thinking about branding while being collaborative with each other but totally secretive from the adults wanting everything to be a surprise.

When they came back from the studio every day it was biking (a few of them learned to do wheelies this week), hitting golf balls, trampoline, doing workouts with one of the dads, or playing hoops/knockout with me. After dinner they clean everything up cult-style before games or movies.

I’m always wistful when camp ends. The other parents would agree with me — it’s the best week of the year and we’re not even one of the kids. Watching them bond and seeing their personalities develop from year to year is unbeatable. It definitely takes planning to make it happen, but if you have ever thought about doing something like this it’s well worth the effort. And if you do it without having them go to a camp together during the day, you can use the budget to customize the entire camp experience (this is our plan for summer 2026, even though it requires more time/effort from the host family).

We move and school starts in 2 weeks. It feels like the end of summer already despite August being peak family vacation month for the bulk of the US that still respects Labor Day as the rightful summer close. Make the most of it, while we shop for soccer cleats and backpacks.