Greetings from Big Sky country

So it turns out it's a good thing B brought his laptop (you know, the media-fabulous HP his lovely wife bought him for his birthday last year!), because the CrackBerry quit working in Denver and probably won't rejoin us 'til tomorrow's stopover there again! This means I've been able to use the wireless connection (thanks to my work-at-home s-i-l Sue who had the foresight to get it here in Montana when they moved here from CA a year ago) to check my e-mail at work, decline some meetings, opine as to some records retention matters, and now catch up on my neglected blog. I won't go into chapter and verse (for a no-doubt welcome change), but I will say that I really feel blessed to have married into such a loving and wonderful family as the McBs'.

You know that my immediate in-laws are terrific, warm and kind people who opened their hearts to me even as far back as when I was just the pagan tart living in sin with their eldest son in SF. But what you haven't heard, until right here, right now, is how smart and funny and generous and delightful the entire extended family, with whom we spent four days over this weekend up in Big Fork, are. And they are -- without exception, and even accounting for a liiiiiittle bit of strangeness on the part of just a couple of them (but hey, who am I to be casting the first stone there?!), all the aunts and uncles, all the cousins, and all the cousins' kids are just amazing. And this year, I was no longer the newest McB, because Judd (at 22!!!) is married and he and Jenna are expecting a baby in December -- wow!

Just by way of example of menschiness, Shannon, "the Baby" (of her generation of cousins), who is a favorite of the huz's, and who has a very proprietary attitude toward him, took me aside Sunday when we were all hanging out saying our very protracted goodbyes, and said "I just wanted to thank you for loving my cousin, because he is a great, great man and deserves a wonderful woman to love him. I'm so glad that he found you, because you are loving, and smart, and so funny, and it makes me happy to see that you love each other so much. I'm really glad you're part of our family."

So then we hugged and cried. *sniff* I just got teary thinkin' of it. How totally sweet was that?! Totally precious. Then the huz came up and said, "Hey! Did you make my wife cry?!" and it was funny. We had a group hug, which was particularly amusing b/c he's a solid foot taller than both of us, so it was kind of like seeking shelter under a juniper!

SUPER fun reunion, anyway, lots of time on the water, great family slideshow, really entertaining golf tournament (for which I set the foursomes up, earning kudos, which was cool -- for the first time, there were no siblings or parents together, b/c I decided to mix up all the cousins, aunts and uncles, so people could hang out with family they don't see as often!), each team of which was headed by a woman -- which turned out to keep the testosterone poisoning within acceptable limits!