Hey Nineteen…No We can’t Dance Together

Remember: What happens during Week 19, stays with Week 19. Although there were lots of happenings during the week, we will only be glossing over the highlights. The rest of the stories as well as all the little details and back stories are only able to be told via word of mouth over a cold beverage at the Sand Pebble. You have to be there to learn the Week 19 stories. So if you were hoping to read some juicy dirt here, you will be severely underwhelmed. This is more about the pictures, so here is a brief overlay – but the true story is in the pictures…we start with pictures to go with our last entry which talked about the first two days down in Treasure Island. These are the pix to go with them.

Monday was the big day. We were up early to prep for Rob & Sharon’s wedding. The boys all met up at Rob’s room where we began filling balloons over a couple Bloody Caesars. We went down to the tiki bar and set up decorations. Before we knew it, it was time to get dressed! We met up in Dad’s room and then went down to meet the preacher. The wedding organizer had everything perfect (and we suspect she had some help from someone we couldn’t see). The ceremony went off without a hitch. It was overcast for the ceremony, which was great for pictures since no one had to squint. It was a little eerie during the ceremony when the there was made mention about those that weren’t able to be there when the sun popped out for an instant and seemed to shine only on Robby. I know I saw a picture of it, but I’ll have to check the video to see if you can see it then as well… After the ceremony, we all grabbed a balloon and headed down to the beach. Dad said a few words about Mom & Sue and we released all the balloons in their honor. It was pretty touching and was about the fourth time I welled up that day. We took a ton of pictures with the professional photographer (those should be online this next week – watch for a link here or on Facebook) down on the beach and then headed up for some grub. As we were heading up, the sun came out and stayed out the rest of the day.

They had all the food catered in and it was all really good. We did a toast where I said a few words and we drank to the honor of Rob & Sharon and Mom. They cut the cake but refused to have any fun with it. Robby had an outstanding soundtrack for the whole day and Mike & Jake did a great job of bartending. We ate and drank and laughed for hours. We cleaned up the area, got changed and came back down for the annual Week 19 Get Acquainted party. We continued to eat and drink and laugh – and dance! We had the same guy that has been doing it for a bunch of years now after Carlos left. We had leftovers at the tiki bar for dinner afterwards and ended up out on the beach where Rob & I had cigar, a drink and watched the sunset. We came back up and hung out at the hot tub until security ran us out again.

Tuesday was beach day. We spent the entire day down there. We had plenty of beverages and even had a big bottle of Patron. It was hot and Luke got a pretty bad sunburn. We stayed in for dinner that night. Again, we enjoyed the hot tub until security gave us a ration of shit. George had finally had enough. Security had come down and harassed us every night and “The Don??? set him straight. He kept his cool but spoke his mind. We were very proud of him. We weren’t hurting anyone and we really weren’t that loud… That was the night of the bloody lobby.

On Wednesday, we went shopping. The kids were starting to get a little bored with the same routine of going from the pool to the beach to the hot tub. We ate at the Friendly Fisherman and hit several shops over at John’s Pass, where the kids finally got to see the draw bridge go up. Matt had a teenage moment but got over it. We got to pet live alligators that Luke thought were pretty cool. We came back and hit the beach again. Rob & I got the Frisbee out for the first time and enjoyed some physical activity for a while. We ended up at PJ’s for dinner where a bunch of us all went out. It was a neat place that had a parrot. The food was decent but it was just fun to get about 20 of us all together for dinner. We ended up back down at the hot tub where we again had issues with security. This time we didn’t even wait, we just headed down early to the beach and stayed there until the beach patrol headlights showed up and cleared us all out.

We were supposed to all go parasailing on Thursday. However Brandon or Rob dropped the ball and didn’t get it all set up yesterday. So I started calling around and when we found out the price, everyone backed out on us. The kids were crushed as they had been looking forward to it. So instead I made a few phone calls and got us jet skis! The girls refused to join us, but the boys and I went out on the Fly ‘N High Sea-Doos and had a blast riding around in the Gulf! The best part was that Matt didn’t hurt his shoulder! :0) We talked about going for two hours but decided 30 minutes in to it that we would just do one hour. You get beat up so much on those little rascals! Luke did good riding with me – urging me to go faster and faster. At one point, we pointed them towards Texas and just hammered down for about5 minutes. We were flying and didn’t realize how far out we actually got! We brought ‘em back in and grabbed food at the Boardwalk Grill, there at John’s Pass. We came back and headed back to the beach. Matt joined us this time and had a great time. We played Frisbee and partook in our normal beach activities with the gang. We went shopping down the beach in St. Pete and ate at Verducci’s pizza – it was really good! We came back and played some shuffleboard at the Sand Pebble. Dad had a run in with security this time, explaining to the guard that we were being quiet and that if someone was complaining about THAT noise, they should go stay somewhere else. He wasn’t rude and spoke to him for about 30 minutes. In an odd twist, the police showed up about midnight and ran us off to the beach again.

We had one last hurrah on the beach on Friday. Everyone was out there that day. We found three conch shells with critters (crabs?) inside of them – the first three we’ve ever found. We threw two back but kept one and dried it/pulled the critter out/cleaned up the shell so it wouldn’t smell awful. We went out for a Bryan-family dinner at Sea Hags. They had great food! We enjoyed a couple cocktails and came back for ice cream at the Shake Shop, just down the road from the Pebble. We walked back on a perfect evening and said good-bye to everyone and turned in early.

We caught an early taxi to the Tampa airport (at like 3:30! – ugh!) on Saturday morning and flew back home. I had issues again with security. This time, the She-Guard at Tampa security was all over me as she confiscated my Leatherman’s tool. Indy let me carry it on, but Tampa had nothing to do with it and so I had to leave it behind. Not only did I lose my glasses but also my tool. I swear that Helga just wanted to spend more time with me. We had a good flight with a layover in ATL again. It was cool to watch the sunrise from above the clouds! We made great time but had trouble finding the car. We finally found it and nearly died 3 times on the ride home as it was raining and people were terrible drivers. We finally made it back but we were running late and had to drop the girls off at the high school for dress rehearsal for the Dixon Dance Revue. The boys went home and got unpacked and mowed. The grass was at least 10??? tall – I swear! It was amazing how much the grass had grown in just one week. Gigi made the grass cry by scalping it in several places! That night we met up with the girls for the annual, year-end dance recital. Abby was in three dances and looked amazing. She danced great and although she still didn’t win Miss Personality yet, she did get Honorable Mention again this year – still a nice recognition… Afterwards, Abby had Brooke stay the night with us and came to dinner at El Reparo where we also ate with Amy, Rob & Baili. On Sunday, we finished mowing and did our household chores while catching up on our DVR’ed shows…and napped on and off on the couches all day and night.

Next up is our video section, which includes 4 new family videos…

That’s it for this week’s entry. We may do a double entry next weekend. Thanks for getting all the way through this mammoth edition of the Scheu Family Blog. It may be the most pix we’ve ever posted at once! Thanks for keeping up with us this time out and we’ll catch up with you next time. Until then, have a good one. We really missed you this Week 19, Mom. It just wasn’t the same down there without you…but you would’ve been at the height of your glory and so proud of Rob…believe me, we felt your presence there and thank you for your guiding hand – it was perfect.
Later, Scheu