Ft. Meyers excitment

Dylan wanted down so bad here: (this was taken after dinner - after the storm) This past weekend we went on a mini vacation to Ft. Meyers beach. It's about 2 hours south of us. Uncle Andre and Darren were in a volleyball tournament and we wanted to go cheer for them. We drove down Friday night so we could just go down from the hotel to the beach at 8am instead of getting up way too early. Friday we checked into the hotel then drove to find a good place for dinner. The sky started looking black so we pulled into a parking lot a couple secconds too late. It wasn't raining yet, but as soon as we got out of our rented mini van (that Andre tried selling us over and over again), we had to dodge lightning! It seriously felt like it was striking just feet away. It was so bright and loud and kept comming and comming. We had to go up stairs to the restraunt as I was looking at Steven who was holding Dylan. I didn't want Dylan's head higher than Steven's. Lightning was so close! Even though we made it inside before the rain gushed out of the skies, we didn't exactly feel safe. The place was on a 2nd story right on the beach and it had glass all the way around. We saw and heard the rain blowing sideways. Hail was hitting the windows for quite a while on all sides of the building. When's the last time it hailed in Florida? The palm trees were inverted like you see behind stupid weathermen reporting in the middle of hurricanes. Water was comming in windows and a skylight was leaking on a lady next to us. My heart was beating so hard. The wait staff said they thought it might be a funnel cloud going through. Whatever it was, it was a big storm. Corrie, Steven, and I saw a red flash on the ground where there was lightning. We were sure we'd see something charred but the rain was too thick to see then. Once the rain stopped and we got our pasta, we could finally see the beach below us. There was a crater in the sand. (Look in the picture below).Some people were going out and looking at it and climbing in and around it. Water that had settled higher up on the beach started using it to drain back to the ocean. We decided to go check it out for ourselves after dinner. The boys didn't think that it could have been caused by lightning, but later we turned on the news and they were reporting that it WAS from lightning. There was also dammage to the trailer park right by the site. What an exciting tropical storm. Didn't phase Dylan a bit.

The next morning the boys set up the umbrellas and chairs right in front of their net. They played well and made it into the quarter finals. It would have been cool if they had won their division, but we were ready to go. It was about 8 hours on the beach.

I wish we had kept our hotel room for another night so Dylan could have had a propper nap. The poor little guy had to sleep on the beach. He was so good the whole day. I think all of us got a little pinker than we wanted in some places, but not Dylan! He wanted to go run out in the sunshine but stayed under the umbrellas and we must have re-applied enough sunscreen. Or maybe he just has a good base tan. I'm so happy he didn't get burned.He looks pale here.I'm glad the hotel had a pool so we could cool off a couple of times. I gave Dylan a bath too once before we had to check out.

Matching cheesy smiles - I love it.