Thursday, May 5, 2005

Happy Cinco de Mayo and Happy Birthday Emily!

Where's Gabriel?
Can you find the baby in this picture?

First of all, a big Happy Birthday to Emily, who turned 20 today. We're sure that her friends surprised her with a delightful non-alcoholic punch to celebrate, ha ha.

Yesterday was softball Wednesday. The Intimidators won! Woohoo! Matthew was 1 for 4 but was on base 3 times (twice due to fielder's choice) and had 1 RBI. They won by one run, 9-8, so you could say that the game win was due to our favorite first baseman.

We didn't do anything special for Cinco de Mayo today. We didn't even eat dinner. Patty had to tutor, so it was 9 o'clock before we even got to sit down together.

Gabriel must be going through a growth spurt. His appetite is through the roof, and he has an amazing amount of energy. He's been crawling all over the apartment, and we caught him in an interesting place today, as you can see in the photo. He's also getting more clingy. He follows his parents around everywhere. He seems to be beginning to understand the word "mommy" and uses it often. He calls his daddy "Baba." He likes to show us the things he's holding, and he likes to play tug-of-war with them. He has been leaving a trail of destruction wherever he goes. We will soon have the strongest thighs in the south from all of the squats we've been doing to pick up his books.

Jack called home today to say that he's doing well. He's on a 12-hour night shi ft, and his captain apparently gave them his calling card to call home. He said that he is ready to come home but is in good spirits. It was about 2:00 am for him and 6:00 pm EST.

Since we didn't do this yesterday, here is our weekly

AR7 Watch

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Only one more week to go!

We thought we'd learned a new strategy from Joyce when she pointed out that direct flights are a better bet, even if there's an earlier flight with a layover, because there are fewer chances for a delay or unexpected setback. However, the teams that took the earlier flight did get there without incident, so we don't know what we would do. Here's the team-by-team breakdown:

Gretchen and Meredith: Well, finally they are out. We're impressed that they made it this far, especially since they'd given up at least 17 times, but the sanskrit was on the wall. And just as they'd stopped giving up...

Uchenna and Joyce: They're working really well as a team and could possibly pass up Ron and Kelly on the next leg. It's hard to believe that they had marital troubles before joining the race. It seems to be doing them a lot of good.

Ron and Kelly: Why is she still clinging to the idea of marrying him when he obviously isn't interested? And why, for the love of Maybelline, did she share lipstick with the woman at the airport counter? We don't know if it's more vain or disgusting, but EEW! They were the first team in all of the seasons we've watched that didn't whine when they were yielded and take it personally. At least there's that.

Rob and Amber: If they don't win, we'll be surprised. Their idea of finding a local person in many of the legs is brilliant. We don't think that anyone else has done that in the game's history.

Stay tuned for the season finale next week!