Thank you, Susie!!

This is a week or so late, but I'd like to send a public thank you to my mother-in-law Susie, who came to visit last weekend just after Jason returned from Jamaica. Not only did she babysit for us so Jason and I could go out together sans baby for the first time since November (oh, how I wish I was exaggerating), but she uncomplainingly came to my family reunion that Sunday. This whole experience probably sucked for her for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

• I baked two pies to take with us, and the whole house smelled like pies on Saturday, but I wouldn't let anyone have a piece until we got to the reunion. That alone is a hanging offense in some countries.
• The reunion was at a location four hours away from our house, so Susie got to spend 8 hours in the backseat of our car. Susie is the same height as me, so backseats and her are not a good fit.
• The reunion was in an unairconditioned building, on a day when it got to be 98F outside. There were some fans to move the air around, but all of us were picking out our outfits based on how badly they would show sweat stains.
• Our family reunions are so big (66 people this time) that we all have to wear nametags, which we make so that people can tell who we're related to. So mine has my name on it, and my mother's, and my grandmother's. Susie had to somehow put on there that she was my mother-in-law, and not actually related to anyone. I told her she should just put her name and "I came for the food," but she wouldn't play along.

So Susie gets MAJOR points for going along, pretending not to mind, and not complaining about it even once. I totally owe her some more painting at her house next time we're visiting.

Oh, and did I mention she's an awesome photographer, and having her there allowed us to get all of my grandmother's descendants in one shot? Well, except for my cousin Jeff, his wife, and three of their kids (one made it; the rest were being carted to tennis camp that day). You can just imagine them in the sorta blank area at the right side of the shot. Here's the Bohl family, or at least my grandmother's branch of it: