Sanibel.

We had an awesome week in Sanibel, Florida.  Charlie did pretty well on her first plane rides.  We had connecting flights both ways so she spent some time running around O'hare and Dallas/Ft.Worth airports.  We got to Sanibel late on the 4th, Steve's birthday.  Overall she did very well with being thrown off her regular schedule.  Julie and Steve rented out a condo for 2 weeks.  Scott, Lauren and Jake were there the first week, and we visited the second week.  It is hard to coordinate 3 resident call schedules so we missed out on being all together.

We spent the week alternating between the pool and the beach, trying out new restaurants, and playing cards.   We found a kid pool that Charlie was able to stand up in and had lots of cool kid toys.  We went to crab races one night in Captiva.  There was a pretty sunset and a couple getting married on the beach.  It was really nice for Charlie to be able to hang out with her grandparents and to experience new things.

Charlie tried out a lot of new things this week.  She had oreos, chips and onion dip, grouper, conch fritters, and a kiwi and strawberry shake for the first time.  She was hesitant at first, but really liked the sand and ocean  by the end of the week.  We saw lots of wildlife by our condo.  There were conch, birds, dolphins (my personal favorite), and lizards.   She had a great time meeting people this week.  She met a lot of younger kids at the pool and at restaurants when she got tired of sitting in her highchair.   A lot of people were from other countries so we listened to some great accents.

Paul and I had some time together with just us two.  We went kayaking, had a couple of walks on the beach, and had a night out for dinner and drinks.   I even went and had a massage.  The weather was pretty much perfect the whole time we were there.  It felt even better than normal because of all the rain we have had recently in Missouri.