Hayden And The Narwhal

While learning about all the animals that live in the arctic, one animal in particular struck a chord with Hayden and he got a SERIOUS case of 'gotta have it' syndrome.

We checked all of the regular haunts where we go for little plastic critters - no dice.

Problem: nobody has this flippin' narwhal, and we think we figured out why:  It was created in 1997 and supplies are limited.

Anyway, Grandpa and Uncle Drew were driving from Texas to California and taking the Pacific Coast Highway right through Monterey.  I asked if they would be kind enough to check out the aquarium gift shop and see what they have to say about it.  It was at this point that Dad made a classic blunder.  He promised Hayden that Grandpa was going to bring him a Narwhal.

Monterey Bay Aquarium's gift shop was a bust.  But there was a silver lining: Uncle Drew thought Dad was messing with him - sending him on a 'snipe hunt' for a toy that didn't exist of an animal that didn't exist, but the gift shop corroborated Dad's story that the Narwhal is, in fact, a real animal and apologized that the toy version was out of stock...so Dad was off to the Interwebs to find the magic.

Amazon had 2 left.  5 minutes later, they had 1 left.

It was delivered to Grandma and Grandpa's house so Dad wouldn't look like a total chump and when Grandpa finally got it into Hayden's hands he freaked out.  In a good way.