Grown-Up Vacation - Day 1

My Man is a sailor and that means many weekends during the summer are spent racing on Can Can Duex. What does that mean exactly? It means many weekends alone with my kids. Which on one hand can be fun...and other times, pure torture.

So I consider this racing hobby of his to be his "summer job". Without this summer job we wouldn't have our "excuse" to go on little vacations (5 days on Macinac Island, a weekend in Michigan, etc.). So in all of our years together, I tolerate his weekend job.

Last year we were invited to the first (annual) Can Can Duex crew party at Captain Clem's house in Florida. But we couldn't go (because the kids were not invited and we couldn't get a sitter). But this year is a different story! So we got to go to the 2nd annual crew party...and we left at 6AM, Friday, February 27. We were the last ones to arrive.

We flew into Fort Myers and a taxi picked us up to take us to Ft Myers Beach where the Holiday was docked (& everyone else was already on the beach). We hit the beach and had lunch and met up with the rest of the crew.

Since everyone already had at least a day of drinking on us - we started right away. By the time we were ready to head back to Cape Coral we were ready to party. The boat ride back home was fun - we saw dolphins off our bow and there was a rumor of manatees (but we didn't see any of those).


When we got back to the Sands Blvd Inn (Capt Clem & Helle's house) we saw the 300 lb ice luge waiting for us. If you've never experienced an ice luge..then you are missing out! But this wasn't just any ordinary drinking game - this was a team building exercise (remember, this is a CREW party!). First, you take your shots on the luge, then you run up the hill to the side yard & have to lasso a post. And EVERYONE was doing this! We were split into two teams - the red team & the purple team - spouses on separate teams (I'm on the red & My Man on the purple).

I did pretty good on my practice toss - but after my shot on the luge & running up the hill to do the lasso - I was too far gone. So after my 3 trys (or did we get 5?) I hadn't completed a single toss. I think Capt. Clem made it on his first try!

This game went well into the evening so the only left to do after this was drink, eat, drink, drink and pass out (which is what My Man...and others...did).

It was great to have an entire day & evening where we didn't have any kids relying on us for anything - no one following us around asking for stuff, able to use the bathroom alone (you know what I mean if you're a parent!). Meanwhile, my kids were home with a sitter having a fabulous time - so much though that they didn't really even want to talk to me when I called to check in.

Tune in tomorrow for day two!