Thanks, but no thanks

It looks like this year we’ll be heading up to Logan to join my mom’s extended family for Thanksgiving.

When I say extended, do I ever mean extended. They have to reserve the church to have room for everyone. My mom has 6 brothers. With one exception, they all have at least 4 kids—I think. I quit keeping track of my cousins a decade or so ago. Now that the grandkids have started procreating, the numbers have reached fairly ridiculous proportions. I honestly have no idea how many 2^nd cousins I have. Something like 10 or so.

I haven’t been to Logan since Sophie was 8 months old. Before that, I hadn’t been for, well, years and years. Do I dare blog about the karmic mush that is my mother’s family? Not so much. Here’s an abbreviated version.

So, my dad was in the Navy, and nearly every summer, whether we were living in Minnesota or California we would DRIVE OUR ASSES to northern Utah. Luckily, this was the pre-seat-belt days, so we would roll around in the back of the station wagon eating fruit roll-ups and gold fish crackers, playing travel games, starring in the Smith Family Way-Back-Band (did anyone else call the back of the station wagon the way-back?) and starting pinch-fights.

When I was little, I loved these trips. Cousins, cookouts, trampolines, and my grandma’s homemade strawberry jam. As the years went by, though, they became more, well, torturous. I grew boobs, lost my faith in the LDS church, and realized that just because people are related to you, it doesn't necessarily make them nice. I suddenly felt like the blackest of black sheep. Then I remembered the basement incident.

So, why am I going to Logan for Thanksgiving? Why am I going to haul my size 18 ass up to the mother land to be sized up, (I can just hear one aunt whispering to the other, “Becky used to be such a pretty girl. She sure has let herself go.) scrutinized and generally put on display? It ain’t for the turkey, I can tell you that.

Family is family I guess. None of my uncles, aunts or cousins have met Sophie, and I’d like (some) of them to. Plus, there are a handful of 2^nd cousins just her age, and I’m sure she’ll have an absolute ball running through the halls of the church with them. My girl LOVES cousins. She misses the Krause kids like crazy, and absolutely adores the Jorgensen cousins. For Soph, playing with cousins is better than Disneyland. When I tell her that we’re going to meet new cousins—a whole building full, she’s going to flip.

Those little bastards better be nice to her, or I will loose my shit.