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It's not just a weekend anymore!

This year's beach vacation was a bit different than normal. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Saint Family's famous Beach Weekend, for the past 18 years, we've been gathering for a long weekend (Wed-Mon) at the Pink Shell on Ft. Myers Beach. The original purpose was to be at the beach to watch the annual Off-shore Regatta, however, Beach Weekend ended up with a life of its own.

The first few years, we rented one or two of the older condos right on the beach, but then we moved to the unique Pink Shell Cottages, which where each rental unit was a small, independent stilt house... we usually rented 5-6 cottages. Unfortunately, the Pink Shell folks, much to our chagrin, decided to tear down these wonderful cottages and build a large condo unit. So, we moved back to the older condos, but this time we got the Penthouse (along with a few other units). This worked well for us for 3 years, until this year... the Pink Shell, in all of their so-called wisdom, had decided to tear these condos down as well, and they wouldn't rent them to us. In addition, they refused to provide any equivalent type of accomodations where the family could be together (so much for 18 years of customer loyalty)... so Mom decided to forget the Pink Shell and find something different.

So let me introduce you to The Breakers (a.k.a., The Martin Estate). The estate is located right on the beach on Captiva Island and is comprised of 2 houses -- a main house containing 5 bedrooms and 5 1/2 baths, and the guest house containing 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Each house has it's own swimming pool with a hot tub, and most baths had a jacuzzi tub and cable television. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyways), it was glorious!

The Martin Estate.	This is the living room of the main house.

Janet and Cammy, preparing lunch in the kitchen.	Spending the evening relaxing on the back porch.

One of the big hits of the week was a game that Janet brought called "Dance Dance Revolution" or DDR. This games consists of a Playstation 2 game along with 2 dance pads that attach to the PS2. The game displays dance steps on the screen, and you're supposed to dance with the displayed steps. Everyone was having so much fun that even though there were only 2 dance pads, there would be as many as 6 people dancing along at one time (and the room wasn't that big). To me, the most interesting phenomenon was that the guys seemed to like the game as much as (if not more than) the girls... I guess if you make it into a competition, then the guys will like it.

Dance, Dance Revolution!

Beach Week(end) has often been the time to celebrate some major event, and this year was no different. This year, Bryan graduated from Cape Coral High School, so we celebrated his graduation at the beach. Donna did a great job setting up and decorating, and Bryan invited lots of friends to join the family for the party.

Party at the beach!

In general, however, most of the week was spent doing our own thing... swimming in the pools, searching for shells on the beach, watching all sorts of movies, playing games and just hanging out... and, of course, eating!

Hanging out!

One of the funniest moments was watching Lady have her first swim...

Lady went swimming every day, but I think she'd have rather not.

And, of course, what would be a week at the beach without a few sunset shots...

A few sunset shots.

It was a glorious week, and I could have stayed another month... if I'd have won the Lottery, I'd still be there.

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