I can tell you the moment when I knew my in-laws had become family. I was very sick--the beginning of what would become my chronic health problem, woo--and markgritter and I were in the middle of an eight-hour drive to a friend's wedding in Chicago. I blurted out, "I just want to go home to your folks' in Milwaukee instead." Before then, while I was fond of his folks, I wasn't yet at the point where I would have ever called it "home" or wanted to be there when I was miserable--I would rather have been in a comfy nice hotel than dealing with my in-laws.

And there are members of my family with whom that is still so, and they're still my family, but--that was the moment when I knew, with my in-laws, that we had crossed that line from Mark's parents to my parents-in-law.