photos from Charleston

Ezra and I had a spectacular trip to Charleston. Ezra is completely in love with Gideon the dog, chasing him all over the house and patting him and pointing and saying "doggy!" We went to the beach on the Fourth of July, and Ezra loved the ocean but disliked the sand (in fact, he wouldn't sit in the sand, and wouldn't touch my hand when it had sand on it). Ezra's Grandma and Granddaddy took us to the aquarium, also, and Ezra had a wonderful time pointing at all of the fish, watching the sharks, and seeing some cool birds. While we were there he really picked up on his language skills, and now says quite a few words, although most of them he doesn't say very often. He seems to have mostly given up on signing (with an exception being the sign for "more," which he signs a lot and also says, "mah! mah!") in favor of talking. His favorite word at the moment seems to be light ("ight!"); he points at all the lights in whatever room we are in, including the library. And one of his favorite things to do is get any phone (house or cell) and hold it up to his ear and babble. Sometimes he also holds things that aren't phones to his ear, too.

Here are some photos my father took while we were visiting (with the caveat that my father will probably work on them a lot before they are officially ready for viewing, but I wanted to get them up now!):