Meet Shamu

Meet Shamu -- Shamu is one of Mike's stuffed animals from when he was a little kid and the only one he's still attached to.

The story goes like this ... the Fluits make the trek down to Marineland when Mike was 5. They had a great day walking around the park, seeing the killer whales, dolphins and other various marine life. The problem came when it was time to leave and Mike had gotten rather attached to Shamu, the killer whale, in the gift shop. Mike's parents typically had the rule that you don't buy anything from the gift shop seeing as everything is ridiculously overpriced. So, after begging and pleading from Mike, his parents held their ground and walked him out of there.

Cue the crying...

Apparently Mike cried the whole way out of the park and really kicked it up a notch when they reached the car.

Mike's dad uncharacteristically broke down and walked all the way back into the park to buy Mike little shamu. Let me just say how out of character this is for him. First off, he's dutch - and hates spending more money than something is worth. Second - he's a stubborn dutchman and when he said no to his kids, he meant no and never went back on it. But something happened that day that cracked him...and made Mike the happiest little boy on earth.

So when we were visiting his parents the other month - we found shamu -- and he is now seated in a place of honour -- in Augusta's crib. I think I can safely say that buying shamu was a good investment ;)