AAAAAHHHHHHHH it was so relaxing down in Naples last week. I could have stayed for a few weeks. I couldn't believe these kids. They were happy, got along almost the entire trip, and just wanted to go to the beach. period. Tropical storm Arlene caused a week's worth of raining and flooding, but we got lucky in that it all ended the Sunday we flew in. I was concerned we were landing in a swamp, and it was bumpy in the rain clouds, but no gators got us. good thing. After that, it was all sunshine and happiness.
Click the itty bitty pics to see our larger versions. I just dropped off the disposable camera today, so should have pics of the action shots of body surfing and other general beach silliness soon. Can't wait!
Our days went like this...wake up around 8am, make waffles (talking like Donkey from the movie Shrek, yes each day we did this), put on swimsuits, pack big ol' cooler full of water and snacks, head for the swimming pool & hot tub at the condo. I don't know why, but my kids had as much fun in the tiny swimming pool and not-hot tub playing with "headless barbie" as they did at the beach. Our days began and ended here, which helped to wash off the sand in the outdoor shower too I guess. I don't know why, but headless Barbie was an everlasting source of games. They played "fling headless barbie", if she landed butt-up (no face so you can't say face-up or heads/tails here), they jumped into the not-hot tub, if she landed belly-up, jump into the pool. repeat for hours. Then, off to the beach for body surfing on boogy boards, eating ice cream cones on the pier, building sand castles, picking up sea shells and more body surfing until it's time to eat snacks under the umbrella. Everything tastes better with sand in it. We'd head back to the pool, to the condo, play cards or go for a walk or see a movie and go to bed and start the whole dang thing over again. heaven!
One night my baby bro and I decided to head out gambling. No sissy Indian Casino's for us, nope. No pretty large SAFE cruise ship casino's either, apparently. He picked one a friend had gone on before and it was a DUMP on floats. cripes. We rode on this shuttle boat out into "international waters" aka "too damn far from the coast to even see land on the horizon", to meet up with the casino boat. We passed a few other LOVELY LARGE safe-looking ones on our way, but kept on going. going going going. We pulled up next to this boat that I swear had duct-tape holding it together. It was not much bigger than the damn shuttle boat we rode on out there. I was a bit concerned, but figured, what the heck? THEN a few storms come through. I'm getting a bit more concerned, but am doing ok at the craps table, so figure AH, what'll happen. Started losing said money and took a walk upstairs. It started rocking so that I was having a hard time standing up (not just the free beers and a couple of shots I'd had, the water was ROUGH!) I thought I'd better start looking around for the lifeboats (none visible). Ok, no problemo. Find where the life preservers are kept. There were two little closets with small numbers of jackets supposedly inside. The closets were in the back corner of the lower deck. I figured that would be a death trap to try to get there if we started sinking, so I decided to work on self-preservation here. I started checking out the fat people on the boat. I discarded the tough mafia-looking ones as they'd have too much attitude. I settled on a nice overweight couple as my peeps. If we went down, I was going to very nicely ask to float on top of them. Not only would we float, but the sharks would hopefully get full before getting to this single momma. I've got to look out for those kids, right? My brother told me I was nuts, but he's skinny and a hell of a swimmer, so he'd probably do just fine in the water. I wasn't worried until I couldn't see the shore any longer and those dang pipes with water shooting out of the bottom of the boat were cranking out the water. I know they are supposed to do that a bit, but when that boat started rockin, I was ready to live. (I mean no offense to overweight people, I, myself, am too chubby for my own good, but seriously, being politically incorrect could have saved me from the sharks.)
More about my sweet/psycho little old Italian man "verra verra bootiful woman" that I could NOT get rid of when we went to Marco Island. Yes, we went around saying "marco...polo...marco...polo" the entire time we were on the island. So, my children are obnoxious too, where would they have learned that?
An apology to my best friend in the world Jildo. I called Jildo from the deck of the upper level as I watched the waves crashing onto our little boat and I thought I was going to die. You don't get a lot of cell phone coverage out there, so I cut out after explaining how I was going to outlive the sharks and I left her a bit concerned. All she heard was "international waters" "sharks" "storm" and "lost a butt-load of money" so she thought she was going to have to wire money to me on some strange island if I survived the storm. I did email later to let her know I was alive and had enough $$ to make it home (we'd been on a few trips where the gas card was the only thing keeping us fed and alive on the 20 hour drive home, so there's a history here). SORRY Jildo!
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