thanksgiving...

since it is so expensive to fly across the country we decided to stay in jacksonville and have a nice relaxing long weekend.  friends of ours decided to go to the o'club (officers club)  for the thanksgiving buffet they do there so we decided to join them.  nice to wake up and just get dressed thursday morning instead of cooking all day and cleaning house for guests and then cleaning up everything after.  the food was great and we had a good time chatting with friends.  after we finished eating and at least taking one bite of almost every dessert... we headed home.  the rest of the day was spent relaxing and playing with daniel.  it was a really nice day... we definitely missed being with all our family and cooking with my mom... and i know they missed my super sweet sweet potato casserole.

the next day we slept in and then that afternoon we headed to the beach with a friend and her 7 month old little boy.  we just sat around and talked and enjoyed the scenery.  the boys had a good time playing in the blowup pool (used as a play pen)  stealing toys from one another... but being very cute while doing so.  we also took the opportunity to experiment with our new camera lens... i'm also experimenting with using manual mode... like totally experimenting not completely having a handle on what the numbers really mean.  but till got some great shots...

and yes his hat is the cutest thing ever! saturday we met some friends at the park and took family pictures for each other and then let the kids play for a while.  that evening we may have eaten dinner with them as well, but i can't remember anymore.  we eat with them quite a few times.  i will post the family pics once i have sent out our christmas card as they are the same .  sunday we went to church and  we then spent the afternoon setting up christmas decorations... what little we had.  can't wait to stock up during the after christmas sale... we really need more in our collection.  we were having such a lazy afternoon chris nearly forgot he had to go check in by 3... luckily a friend came over and reminded us.  it was a nice long and lazy weekend. which is sometimes just nice.