news from chicago: Thanksgiving in Florida

We had a wonderful time in Florida for Thanksgiving this year. We were there for almost a week and had beautiful weather each day! I was a little concerned about flying with James with no diaper but he did wonderfully. He never even got out of the car seat on the plane - so all that worrying for nothing. He was so proud of himself going to the bathroom at the airports :)

Everyday we were there was spent at the beach. We didn't even go to the aquarium! But, I have to say, it was so nice to be at the beach. There's nothing like salt water and the breeze right off the ocean. Also, we were treated to days with 80 degree temps! It was SO nice. James loved the beach. He would walk by crab holes and tell all of us to be carefully to not get pinched :) He would walk up to the waves breaking, get his feet wet, and then run laughing back up on the sand. It was too cute. Doug built this huge sand castle and it had a even bigger trench around it. James would go in there (sometimes fall in there) and pretend to be a crab in his crab hole. James also got his first ice cream cone - he's had ice cream but never from a place in a cone so he was stoked. We went to get ice cream almost every night. AND James saw stars for the first time ever. I know how weird this sounds, but we live in a city. When there are lights, a lot of lights, like in Chicago, we maybe see one star and sometimes it may/may not actually be a helicopter or plane. He was really into them. Then I sang "twinkle twinkle" so he'd be able to have a context and his face lit up like he was having an "ah-ha" moment. Anyway, I'm going to let the photos guide the memories from here on out. There were way too many photos to post here so this is just a 'best of' if you will.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends and family!

As soon as we landed, we changed into shorts and were beach bound :)