James' Special Day

James has a wonderful Dad :) This year, James' birthday fell on a Thursday and Doug thought it would be fun if he took off on the Friday and we could all go to the Shedd like we did last year for James' first birthday. It was such a great time. Despite the week being littered with rainy and cold days, we were treated to a gorgeous 60 degree sun-shiny day.

We arrived just in time for snack and had the best view of the huge center tank in the main area of the Shedd.

It was very busy that day - it seemed like every Chicago Public School was at the aquarium on their field trip. Ca-razy busy.

However, we had a great time and took James to see the Dolphin show. He was so excited when he saw the dolphins swimming around and jumping out of the water in their holding area before the show. It's a great thing we hung around there for a while, because the show itself, was a little off that day. It was cut short because the animals were not up for it. Although Doug and I were disappointed, a certain little someone was so excited he got to see two dolphins rocket out of the water. All day he made the dolphin noise and we left the Shedd with a dolphin pal for James.

We also got to see the special exhibit put on by the Shedd which featured really cool Jellyfish. Doug is a fabulous photographer and got some excellent shots.

Afterwards, we went outside and spotted our hot dog cart and were thrilled about lunch! It may sound silly, but it was so much fun that we could all sit outside and enjoy a hot dog for lunch. I also packed a pear which James inhaled. We also had little visitors that wanted to eat our lunch with us - a handful of sparrows and a couple of red-winged blackbirds. Mom may have screamed when one swooped too close ... due to an unfortunate encounter feeding geese as a child, Mom is a little weary of birds that come too close.

We drove home with the windows down listening to great music in an effort to keep James awake until we got home :) It worked. We all took a very long nap and for dinner, we all enjoyed delicious pizza from Bricks. It was a perfect day - a special day for the birthday boy :) The last thing we did before bath and bed was to take this month's measurement.

It was a great year :)