Did Someone Say "Swimming?"

We decided to go for a family swim the other day. Much giggling ensued.

Ian has recently become very interested in shoes. Whenever one of us leaves our shoes out (usually Rosi, but sometimes Mamie or Daddy), he climbs into them and tries to stomp around the house. His favorites are a pair of Rosi's red flip-flops that he can put on and take off all by himself. He has his own pair of flip-flops, so we decided to try them out on our way to the swimming pool. He put them on all by himself, can you tell?

We got Rosi a mask and snorkel after she'd borrowed a mask from one of our neighbors and just adored it. She's even taught herself to swim with the mask on. She insisted on wearing the complete set to the pool, but was having a little trouble getting everything lined up properly on her face. After a frustrated huff, she exclaimed,

Can't somebody help me with my snort hole?

Monty Python

Someone has declared it Monty Python Status Day on Facebook. While I have a FB account, I'll occasionally "like" something or add a comment, and I somehow managed to accumulate 11 friends, I don't post pictures or status updates and I've never bothered to reset my profile since they decided everything needed to be connected to another FB page. Still, in an attempt to be relevant, I thought I'd share a funny story from my college days as it involves the only Monty Python quote I can ever remember.

I was attending a weekend conference at Montreat. I'm linking to the website because they have some lovely pictures of their grounds that are making me all nostalgic for the mountains. Sigh.

Some friends and I (two girls and three guys) were walking from the dining room to the auditorium where our next session was to be held. The guys were talking about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, recounting the conversation between the King of the Swamp Castle and his son, Herbert.

The king reviews the commendable attributes of Herbert's unwanted fiancee, "What's wrong with her? She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge ..." He pauses, holding both hands out suggestively in front of his chest.

Just then, we passed another student, a guy we'd never met, headed in the opposite direction. As the guys in our group continued, he quoted right with them, complete with hand gestures, not even breaking stride.

My girlfriend and I looked at one another and just shook our heads. Later we outlined our plan for peace on earth through Monty Python, sure that we could bring world leaders together with big bowls of popcorn to laugh, rather than fight, over "huge ... tracts of land."

Congratulations, Planet Nomad!

Apparently, if you want people to enter your contests, you have to both give away something people want and actually have readers who visit regularly. Dang.

After I swept myself up off the floor that only ONE PERSON entered my book giveaway (dramatic sigh, "Nobody loves me!"), I decided to go with it and look on the bright side. This saves me the trouble of visiting that random number website to choose a winner.

Congratulations to Planet Nomad, and many thanks for making my giveaway a success. If you would please shoot me an e-mail with your contact details I will be happy to get your book in the mail.

Tell your friends ... I'll be here all week ...