I've been in Walla Walla now for about five days. So far so good.  It is funny-strange to go from living by yourself to traveling with a college friend and then spending all of your time with your family but all in all I feel pretty lucky to have a summer like this one.

On and off over the last two years, I've gotten the question why do you refer to your parents as "MoM &amp; dAd"? But mostly this was from friends who thought I was somehow mis-typing their names and wanted to correct me.

However, yesterday a reader posed this question to me and I figured now is as good a time as any to explain why I call my parents "MoM  &amp; dAd" on this blog.

I am not sure it's the most interesting story ever but that happens from time to time on a blog.<!--more-->

My parents both have a great sense of humor.  Growing up my dad's was always a little bit bigger, a little bit stranger, a little bit more out there than my mom's which is more understated but just to be clear she's got a great sense of humor as well (I mean she has put up with my dad for 30+ years of marriage).

Anyhow I grew up with the joking, the teasing, the banter so I never thought much about it but at some point you realize that not everyone's families are like this (which is kind of a shame). Then I went to college. And realized how lucky I am to have my parents as my parents.

Then they started emailing me.

My mom would email me things like: are you going to call this weekend or when is Christmas break? And my dad would email me ridiculous stories about things that were happening at the Antique Store or in Walla Walla.

However it wasn't until my sister went to college (and email etiquette started changing) that my dad started getting creative (and silly). I still signed my emails Carolyn but my sister Charlotte signed her emails "char." Then one day, I think (but this is not confirmed) not to be out done by his youngest daughter in cuteness and creativity, I received an email from "dAd."

I didn't think much about it the first time. But then every single email started arriving this way. Funny guy. I mean, what's he up to? It would be weird if my dad all of a sudden felt the need to distinguish himself from every other dad emailing me by signing his emails dAd.  I mean, there aren't any other dads emailing me. Just him. I didn't say anything about this to him and he persisted.

The kicker was when he started signing emails from both parents Love, dAd &amp; MoM.

Needless to say, it stuck. Then my mom started signing her emails to us kids as MoM. I started writing to both of them as MoM and dAd.

My mom claims that she didn't jump on the band wagon right away but adopted the new signature "MoM" because of my dAd. <em>Aw.</em> For the record, I think that she likes it now.

When I started by blog, I referred to them them as MoM and dAd because it's silly and I am a silly person. I also figured it was an inside joke that I could take with me to Bulgaria.

The thing is, now I am in the habit of referring to them as MoM and dAd even though it's not at all natural to type.  In fact it really slows me down to type their names like this but I do it because that's how I think of them now.  I also do it because I love them and I figure it's a quick and easy sign of this when sometimes I am too busy to email or skype.  It's my short hand.

And now you know.