Hurrah! The French Incursion! (And on Bastille Day, no less)

Today Monique and I acquire a pair of loaner boys for the next month, as our nephews Malcolm and Henry are arriving from Paris, France, for a summertime visit. Some years we get what I call the Full French Foreign Legion Invasion: Monique's sister Michelle, her husband Thierry, and all four of their kids: Max, Stella, Malcolm, and Henry.

But this year it's a minor incursion, just the pair of 10-year-old twin boys, Malcolm and Henry, whom I have known ever since they were tiny babies. Though they are twins, they are fraternal twins and are thus both alike and different in many ways. In that way they remind me of my own twin siblings Erick and Katrina, who are also an astonishing mix of striking similarities and vast differences.

Although the French have not elected to reclaim Michigan with a full invasion this year, in a move astonishingly similar to the pincer movement that defeated Cornwalis and secured American independence, the French Incursion will be joined by U.S. forces for four or five days in a couple of weekends -- the Gettysburg Brigade of my sister Susan, her husband Rich, and their three kids: Shea, Atlee, and Greeley.

It's a real joy to have children around in the summer when you live on a lake. Sometimes I feel that Monique and I don't quite take full advantage of the lakefront livin', but kids have a way of squeezing full fun out of the lake all day long. It really reminds me of my own childhood summertimes on Loon Lake up in the Adirondacks, which makes me marvel at the astonishing vast scope and unpredictability of all the years that have since passed on this crazy ride we call "life".

(Added Bonus: the visit has given me a good excuse to add famed Japanese cartoon Star Blazers (AKA Space Battleship Yamato) to the Netflix queue, in a purported attempt to keep our wee guests amused. The 12-year-old John Magee remembers it as quite an entertaining series, so I wonder what the 41-year-old John Magee will make of it.

IMDB.com: Star Blazers
Wikipedia: Star Blazers, Space Battleship Yamato
Netflix: Star Blazers)