Surprise!

We were having dinner at my parents' last night when - SURPRISE! - in walks Mandy! She's on a whirlwind visit from home base in Hawaii, helping her parents get their house ready to put on the market.

Mandy and Gabriel got to meet for the first time. As part of his greeting and acceptance ritual, Gabe smiled at her and spit up on her. I'm beginning to think that I should just let people know that if they'd like to smile and spit up on my kid in return, that seems fair.


I learned four things from last night's suprise:

1) It is GOOD to be with family. I miss the Hawaii Halversons a LOT. A lot a lot.

2) The card game "Golf" is fun.

3) I really don't enjoy the sound of my voice captured in a video.

4) Gabriel gets really grumpy when over-tired. Prolonged grumpy. I had hoped that he'd be one of those kids who's grumpy but then gives in pretty quickly and zonks out. So far, that does not seem to be the case. He's apparently quite concerned with making sure we know that he's really, truly, I'm-not-kidding-here grumpy. And then just when you think he's calming down, he ramps it up again just to drive his point home.