Last Day

 We had a beautiful warm sunny day for our last day here in Naples, Florida. The kids played on the playground in the morning and had some fun basketball games. They came here for hot tub, swimming and lunch then went to the beach. Pictures will be loaded tomorrow. Now that we are back from the beach we are cleaning and packing. We have ordered pizza for dinner and will be leaving for home right after we eat. Mark called to report the weather report for Saturday night and Sunday morning are not good so we will be leaving a little earlier than we expected for this long 20 hour trip home. 

Thursday at Naples

 It was colder last night in the motorhome. I did not need to have the air conditioner on at all. David stopped in last night with more paper plates. We needed those desperately as we had run out and there is not enough table service for all 13 of us. This morning he stopped in on his morning walk to ask if Taegan and Kensely would like to join them for WeeTee golf this afternoon. Nolan needed to go to Walmart to pick up some needed food items and bought 2 WhoDunnit books for me. Of course I had to read them both today both were by the same author and both had twists at the end which I did not figure out. Phil stopped in and bought another by a different author. I think, after the complaint of noise last night they are trying to keep me quiet by keeping me occupied with books. We had a nice day with temps in the 70s and a mix of clouds and sun. The morning was spent at the park playing basketball for Phil and Anna's family. The others played in the pool and hot tub most of the morning. They all left for the beach after lunch. 

David and Stephanie picked up Taegan and Kensley and took them to their house for supper then they all went to a play golf.

While at the park the kids saw a bunny and between the 4 of them caught it.

They let it go then went to an ice cream shop for a special treat.

Tonight the men did the babysitting while all of us ladies went out to eat. We drove to River Walk which is a lot of shops and restaurants and ate at a restaurant called Pinchers. Our table looked out on the river and we were able to see boats coming and going while we were eating. We all ordered fresh fish or shrimp.

After our meal we wandered though the shops. A couple of us bought T-shirts with Naples on them but otherwise it was all window shopping or browsing. I confess to being shocked at the prices. Amy and Ken made it down here and stopped in but it happened to be while us ladies were out. Amy sent a text that we should stop in when done but we didn't get the message until it was already late. We made plans for tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is our last day here. Mark sent the picture below with the message, "back to serious burning."

 

It has turned COLD at home, below freezing and only going tor get worse. He thinks we should leave early as the weather is supposed to get really bad with snow and ice. We are discussing this but a little hard to imagine as tomorrow here in Naples it is predicted to be sunny and seventy. 

Everglades

 We left right after breakfast for the Everglades. Sarah arranged tickets for us all to a hike through the everglades on a boardwalk, take an airboat ride through the Everglades, then a visit to an alligator farm where each one got to hold an alligator and see some tigers and lots of alligators this morning. The airboat ride was the favorite. We needed 3 boats but we all went out at the same time and even at one point raced.

We saw a huge alligator basking in the sunshine.

Another alligator came very close to our boat.

On the way back a porpoise dove right in front of us. No pictures of that. The alligator farm was our second favorite. We got to watch a man handle a huge alligator and then hold one ourselves.

We had packed lunch so ate that on the way to Marco Island where we stayed until 4:00 pm. That was interesting as we had to walk across what seemed to be a wide river to get to the beach.

When we got back to the house I stayed with the 9 kids while the other adults went out to eat at a nice restaurant. We had fun playing in the hot tub and pool and evidently got a little too loud as the neighbors complained but only after we had all come in for the night. We had our supper outside by the pool.

Nolan sent back a picture of his meal, he ordered stone crab claws.

We took lots of pictures and videos of our day and if you would like to see them click HERE. We had perfect weather of 80 degrees and sunny but it has been a long day and even though it isn't quite 9:00 pm I'm heading to bed.