[Wes & Val had blankets made for each sub-family]

[Eugenio, Jamey, Dylan, Ben, Craig, Todd, Bradley, Joel, Me, Sean, Ben W.]

Julie & Tim picked us up from the Ft. Myers airport and gave us a quick rundown of activities. There's a chalkboard with all events and announcements for the day. They would be deep-sea fishing in a couple days. Happy Hour was at 5:30 daily at Dad & Kay's. Sean & Tim would be making one of the dinners. Stores are open until ten or eleven. We share all of the kitchens. The kids had rented scooter-buggies for the day we arrived. I had the chance of a snowball in Florida to take a nap.

The kids rolled up in 8 of these scooter-buggies. Turns out these things are street legal. They have these terrible horns that go *meep! meep!* and drive everyone crazy. We honked these horns the entire time. Sean & I threw our stuff into Dad & Kay's and hit the road. I couldn't stop laughing.

Yes, we were a terror on the streets. It was a great way for Sean & I to see the town and learn our way around the island. It's long and skinny with one main drag, so it wasn't too hard to figure out.

Our condos (we had eight of them) were right next to the pier, which is the town's square and the center of all things on Estero Beach. But back to the buggies.... Bradley's hat flew off and was run over by a few cars; Sean retrieved it. Bradley wore that hat with pride for the rest of the trip. It was covered with tire marks. Since they spent all day on these babies, they were bound to get creative. They all went through the McDonald's drive-thru. We were throwing the parking blocks in front of each other's scooters. Sean & I were spinning with the e-brake whenever we hit a dirt patch. By 5:30, after a few (ahem) repairs, we returned the scooters and headed over to Dad & Kay's for Happy Hour, and to finally say Hi to the rest of my family.

Dad & Kay stocked their "home" each day with chips and appetizers, plus a blender and a smoothie maker, along with fruit and booze and other drink fixings. [I was given the task of inventing a frozen coffee drink.] Then about thirty people would pack into their place for a couple hours while a few assigned people would be making dinner. The dining hall was Nancy & Steve's condo, where Sean and I moved to a couple days later. It had the most dining/main room space. Sunset took place soon after Happy Hour gathered around, so we would watch the sunset from the balcony (where I took the picture on the right).

Dinners were craziness. Tons of people packed into one place, vying for space on couches or chairs, then floor space. There was always tons of food. That night we played "Dirty Bingo", otherwise known as White Elephant, where we exchanged $10 gifts and stole them from each other. Gifts included many Hooters gift certificates (stolen over and over), Crazy slippers (seen above, drawn by Todd & I), a dead crab, a tube of Quaker oatmeal with a ten dollar bill buried in it, lottery scratch cards, a box of sand with 1000 pennies, cheesecake, and a 7-11 coffee gift pack. (There is a 7-11 across the street from our "homes" so a lot of people went shopping there). Someone, I forget who, brought wine and suggested we all try it, and Nancy said "No more dirty dishes!" and suddenly the wine bottle was passed around the room. I took a few pictures, then realized I would have 20 pictures of different people slugging down wine, so I stopped after a few. You get the drift.

glug	glug	glug

After the Dirty Bingo, and my slug of wine, I took my slippers outside to play....