Thanksgiving & Chicago

I know it's a bit late, but I thought I'd share a few pictures from Thanksgiving and our trip to Chicago.

My sister Emily and her husband Phil were in town for the week of Thanksgiving.  It was so great seeing them!  Emily, Stephanie, and I cooked the Thanksgiving meal for 13 adults.  That kept us pretty busy, so I regret to say I didn't take many pictures.  Emily took quite a few, though, so here's hoping that she'll send me some!

1. Charlie meeting Aunt Emily & Uncle Phil for the first time.  He was a big fan!
2. Charlie & James playing "Operation" with Papaw while we were cooking
3. SmartMatt & HazMatt carving the bird
4. An Adult Night Out: Emily, Stephanie, Kristi, Leah, & Jill at the Houndmouth concert

(we took one of these pictures with the 11 of us plus my Uncle Bruce and his family, but unfortunately there was a large spot from sun glare on the photo that looked pretty bad.  I spent about 20 minutes trying to edit it out without much success before giving up)

The week after Thanksgiving, Matthew, Charlie, and I went to Chicago for  5 days.  Matthew had a conference to attend, so Charlie and I tagged along.

1. Charlie's first flight!
2. The view from our hotel room
3. Charlie LOVED the large windows in the hotel
3. The Millenium Park Bean
4.  Close up of Charlie and I in the bean
5. Hanging out, waiting for Matthew to come home
6. Chicago River
7. Charlie's first trip to Michigan Avenue
8. Sweet boy :)

We debated about brining James with us, but in the end, we thought that both he (and we!) would have a better time if he stayed in Indiana.  He spent one night with Uncle Matt & Aunt Steph, and the rest of the time at Grandma and Grandpa Nett's.  We missed him dearly, but I think he had a lot of fun (thanks Steph, Jim, & Patsy for sending us pictures of him while we were gone!)

1. James went to Bass Pro with Matt & Steph; we received this picture saying that James wanted this for Christmas.  Ha!
2. One of his new favorite things at Grandma & Grandpa's: the red wagon
3.  Meeting Uncle Jim Book's dairy cows
4. Uncle Jim Book & James

We were able to FaceTime with him a couple of times while we were gone, too.

FaceTime!

 He said "I want to go to that room with Mama and Charlie."  Love that little guy!

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Years!