Christmas with the Earles

Christmas with the Earles

December 22, 2009

Holly and Matt were delayed 2 days because of complications with the blizzard in the Northeast so came into Ft. Myers on Monday morning. We spent the day with them and that night Monica, Bryan, and Judy came in. What a treat to have everyone together.

As you know there is very little sitting still with Holly and Monica. They have things to do and places to see. It’s a good thing because Mark and I were pretty content to sit still for awhile. So on Tuesday the ladies were off to Sanibel to rent bikes and cycle through the J.N. “Ding” Darling Wildlife refuge. (The guys stayed back to work on the dinghy motor and to learn how to play cutthroat pinochle.) The refuge is a preserve with a five mile car/bike trail with opportunities to view various fowl and possibly an alligator or manatee. However, no one mentions the five mile trek to get to the park. There’s always the discussion about where we are and where we want to go. We saw flamingoes and other birds and fish. Alas, no manatee or ‘gators. We stopped for coffee after our trip and Bryan bought us our drinks and Christmas cookies.

Mark and I presented the Earle family with our Christmas gift: we chartered two fishing boats and guides for a guys and chics fishing contest on Wednesday, 12/23. We decided that the biggest fish would win money and the losing team with the least amount of fish would do dishes for the rest of the week. The ladies were very confident that they would win. The Fish House, a restaurant on the premises, would cook our catch for dinner.

That evening we went out for dinner – a very special dinner for me as it turned out. Holly, Matt, Bryan, Monica and Judy purchased this wonderful dinner and presented me with a surprise gift of tandem hang gliding for my 60^th (that was hard to write) birthday. They cited that I had bungee jumped for my 40^th and tandem skydived for my 50^th so I had to do another daredevil event for 60^th. YIKES! I was stunned that they had thought this far ahead to my birthday (which I was hoping to make a non-event). I was very excited to find out that all the ladies were going to hang glide with me the very next day! (Hmmm… that means we fish and hang glide all in one day – WHEW!) We had a lovely dinner (there’s always one that you can clean up, but you shouldn’t take out). Our evening ended with a few rounds of poker.