Friends & Family | Naples 2016

And, finally, a few staged photos of the crew...

Thanks for an outstanding week, Jungs!

Excursions | Naples 2016

To mix it up, and get out of the sun (a bit), every other day or so, we planned an excursion from home base:

• We mini-golfed at Coral Cay (one of the girls' "top three" of the entire trip... I guess we need to do this more here in MN!)
• We canoed the channels of Naples Bay 
• To observe Florida wildlife in their natural habitat, we hiked Corkscrew Swamp and saw raccoons, alligators and all kinds of birds (side note: just days prior, a woman had a close encounter with a panther on the very path we walked!)
• The entire crew spent a morning fishing with Captain Guy and caught Red Snapper, Grouper, Ladyfish, Sheepshead and Mullet off of Joe Biden's shoreline (and found a few dolphins and an Ice Cream Pontoon on our way to/from)
• A few days later, the dads snuck out for a few hours with the Captain and hit deeper waters; catching several Caribbean Reef Shark, Blacktip Shark and a rare Cobia keeper near the Ten Thousand Islands

Poolside | Naples 2016

By far, we spent the greatest percentage of our time poolside at our VRBO, snuggled in-between multimillion dollar homes, the Gulf, and channels of Naples Bay.  The girls spent countless hours playing Sharks & Fishes, diving for toys at the pool bottom and trying to break world records for distance jumping.  By day three they acquired gills, I swear.  

They did break away occasionally to eat, collect coconuts, and to look for sea life from our dock (we saw a 5' Bull Shark at dusk one evening!).

The Beach | Naples 2016

The next most popular destination was the beach, though we hit several throughout the week:

• On our drive from Tampa to Naples, we stopped in Venice at Casperson Beach to look for shark teeth.  It was pouring rain, but we weren't about to let that get in our way.  
• We rode the largest swells and jumped the smaller ones at Aqualane Shores
• We pit-stopped during our fishing expedition early morning somewhere on Marco Island to go shelling before the rest of the tourist depleted the beach of the good ones
• At Delnor-Wiggins Pass, Naples' supposed best snorkling spot, the wind made the water too strong and murky, so the kids flew kites and built sand castles
• And, by the end of the week, the girls finally built the confidence to join the dads in some boogie boarding at the busiest beach of the bunch, Vanderbilt

The Scenes | Naples 2016

My best "artsy" shots of the trip (and one of Linds')...

Spring Break 2016

For Spring Break 2016, we surprised the girls with a trip to Naples, FL... with their BFFs, our neighbors, the Jungs.  E & S jumped for joy when seeing Savanna, Alayna and Gracyn at MSP during the unveil...and the excitement continued on high for the entire week!