Two Relatives In One!

Last week Mike's Aunt Hazel celebrated her 90th birthday! We wish we could make it up to north Georgia this weekend to join in the official festivities, mainly because we love her to bits, but also because she knows how to party, as this picture from last year makes abundantly clear:

Mike says Aunt Hazel is unique in our family because of what you might call "dual citizenship": Her official nomenclature to Mike and his sister, my Auntie Julia, is "Aunt/Cousin Hazel," as she was their mom's (my Grandma Grace's) first cousin AND they were also sisters-in-law. They were first cousins because Grandma Grace's mother and Aunt/Cousin Hazel's father were sister and brother. They were sisters-in-law because they married a pair of brothers, George and Bob. (George, of course, was Mike's dad--my Grandpa George. And if some British guy in a pub ever told Mike or Julia, "Bob's yer uncle, innit?"--well, by golly, he was right!) What all this boils down to is that Hazel, the birthday girl, is Mike and Julia's aunt as well as their first cousin once removed. And as Mike likes to add for effect, "I'm my own Grandpa."

(Are you getting this? Remind me to tell you sometime about how Mike's real Grandpa, George and Bob's father, once had a sister-in-law who later became his mother-in-law. I've seen feral cat families with less confusing relationships!)

Here's a nice picture of Aunt/Cousin Hazel with her husband, Bob:

And one of Cousins Grace and Hazel from a reunion several years ago:

We wish Aunt/Cousin Hazel a very happy birthday and look forward to seeing her at this year's reunion, later this month!