Andrea and Paige went to Orlando with some of Paige's high school friends. Andrea rented a Honda van to haul everyone and they left on Saturday morning. The resort was awesome for a big group and even though they had four bedrooms in their villa, all the girls ended up sleeping in the fun bunk room that slept five which was perfect.
At the resort, the girls played volleyball, pickleball, swam, and did stand-up paddleboarding. They made friends with a couple of high school age boys and played soccer and manhunt throughout the resort.
For Labor Day this year, Shawn flew to Chicago to visit with his brother and family.
We'd been planning to travel there a few weeks ago, however after falling and fracturing my skull, those plans had to be canceled. I was determined to make the trip out this year and Alex didn't have any plans for Labor Day, although Laura was on call and had to work for most of the weekend.
We didn't have any complex plans for the visit, my goal was just to experience their life in Chicago and hang out with my good friend Charlie. He has such an active imagination and the most energy of any little boy I've ever met. So, it was always and adventure, whatever we did.
Saturday morning, we had a quick breakfast at a nearby bakery and then drove over to the Field Museum. I hadn't been since I was young, and there were all kinds of new exhibits. Charlie is familiar with all the museums and they're like his own playground.
In the kid's area, Charlie and I put on matching skunk outfits while we played with blocks and dinosaur bones.
My favorite exhibit was the gigantic flying dinosaur Quetzalcoatlus statue, and I got a pic with Charlie between its huge wings. We looked at all the dino bones as well, including the famous T-Rex Sue.
In the evening, we played some Minecraft together and then watched K-Pop Demon Hunters while we had pizza.
Sunday morning, we ate breakfast at a nearby restaurant and then decided to go to the beach. There were quite a few things going on during the weekend, so we weren't sure if parking would be possible or easy. We decided that Alex and Charlie would ride their E-Bike and I rented an E-Bike through Lyft. I was a little nervous to ride a bike with my healing surgical issues, but I wore a helmet, and the route to the beach was through some quiet residential areas so it was fairly safe.
The beach was quite a bit different than our ocean beaches we're used to in Florida. Charlie jumped right into the cool water, and we swam for a while and he "surfed" on the waves.
We spent most of our time building sand castles, sand villages, and battling our communities. Charlie liked for his town to win and take the property of the others, and we worked a long time moving sand and then crushing it all. There was also a huge shark sculpture on the beach that we admired.
After the beach, we cleaned up and went to a local Mexican restaurant, before playing some minecraft and watching Aladdin. One of the most memorable moments for me, was after the movie finished I asked Charlie if he enjoyed the movie. He agreed that it was great, and then wanted to play pretend where he was the evil sorcerer from the movie, and pretended to transform into a giant snake so he could bite me. He is certainly one of a kind, that was not the reaction or game I was expecting, but it was classic Charlie.
I had a wonderful time in Chicago and thankful that I was finally able to visit them in their community and their environment.
