Florida

Finally - some pictures from our trip to Ft. Myers, Florida - only a month late!  We left MN on Friday, March 15 and returned on Friday, March 22.  We met my parents down there and shared a condo with them until they left on Monday, March 18.  We then had a few days to ourselves; although some of my parent's friends were also down there at the same time so we met up with them a couple times.  It was a great time!  The weather was so-so, it was a little cool and rained a couple times but still WAAAY better than the MN cold!

 As soon as we landed in Ft. Myers we headed over to my parents' friends' rental house and then headed to the Red Sox ballpark to see the Twins take on Boston.  First of course we had to do a little tailgating!

Look - they  made a sign just for us!

With mom and dad by the big Red Sox

Our seats....  see the very last row, on the very top... yep - that's where we sat!  We had a good view.

The crew at the very cold game - Nick, mom, dad & Jim, Konnie, Abby and Jill Bartels

 Yay - we finally made it to the beach!  This was our first day on the beach - and right outside our condo.

Our "home" - we stayed in one of the two twin condos

This was the view from our condo balcony - yes that's a HUGE beach!!!  It had the most powdery, soft sand!

 My mom and I having fun with our margaritas at a restaurant near us.  Ft. Myers Beach has the most awful traffic so it was nice we had several fun restaurants and bars within walking distance.

On Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, we headed an hour or so south to Marco Island to Stan's Idle Time Bar.  It's not the most glamorous place - but they sure know how to have fun!  They throw the best parties around on Sundays!

Plus they have some fun hats!! 

Nick and I with our green beer for St. Patty's Day! 

 Here's the wild crew!!! 

And the party got a little more wild when we found out we had three Tequila drinkers in the bunch!! So, of course they had to do a shot when we stopped at a bar on the way home.   

Monday we headed over to Hammond Stadium to watch the Twins play the Marlins.  This is the outside of the stadium.  It was a really fun place.  We made sure we got there early to watch batting practice (Justin Moreneau hitting off a "T"!) and of course to tailgate some more. 

 Before the game...

Lookin' good Joe!

Looks like batting practice paid off for Justin!

And then the rain came....

... and didn't stop - we got rained out!!!  Everyone huddled under the beer tent waiting for the rain to clear - but it never did. 

After the game in our rain soaked clothes.

So, what else can we do - except drink our sorrows away at another local bar!  My mom dad and the Bartels' girls had left by this time so we hung around Jim and Konnie and their friends for a while.  Thanks for showing us a good time guys!

So now we're at Tuesday and we decide to just hang around Ft. Myers Beach and walk around the "downtown" area and go shopping.  This is on the pier on Ft. Myers Beach.

The public beach

 Here's a picture of the pier

  And this is the view from the restaurant where I got into a little bit of trouble.... Let me paint the picture for you... it started out as a cool, cloudy day.  We were just leisurely walking around, browsing in shops, had stopped for lunch earlier in the day and decided to stop at this restaurant/bar for a drink.  They ended up having a fantastic acoustic guitar player/singer on the patio - we sat on the roof top deck.  We were enjoying our beers and listening to the good music and just then the clouds went away, the sun came out, and the dolphins starting jumping... it was so warm and the beers were tasting soooo yummy. Life.was.good! Then some very talkative, very nice people sat down next to us and before you know it, Nick had to basically carry me back to the car - and it was only 5 pm!  

Needless to say I wasn't really the same the rest of the trip and there aren't very many pictures from Wednesday and Thursday.  Wednesday it rained and we took some naps, then went to eat at a yummy steakhouse that was close by and Thursday we spent some time on the beach by our condo with Jim and Konnie and their son Adam.

The palm trees in front of our condo 

Gettin' some sun on the beach on Thursday!  "Got my toes in the water, ass in the sand... Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand... Life is good today!"

Our last sunset in Florida.... 

 And then we got to come home to our babies!!!!  Julianne (with Grandma's help) made these signs for us and had them posted on the door when we got there.  I couldn't have asked for a better home-coming!

So, there it is - Florida 2013.  Whew.......