Fort Myers, Florida

On Monday, February 11th, we arrived in Ft. Myers, FL after a teary goodbye leaving Lakeland. I had an awesome bus date with Thomas from Belgium for the 2ish hour bus ride south.

Excited to be each others' very first bus date! =)

We had some workshops to do once we arrived to Ft. Myers, but met our host families later that evening. I found out I'd be hosted alone and with a single gal, but her name seemed pretty youthful (primarily the spelling), so I thought I might be with a younger host. Turns out...I was! Younger than me, in fact!

I was hosted with Kaitlin Thompson and her boyfriend Tyler Tompkins. They are both 21 and very sweet. They have two pitbull dogs, Tank and Steel, and live in a great apartment in Cape Coral, FL (just outside of Ft. Myers). Our host code was "Flashlight," so I snapped a picture of Kaitlin with her prop!

Kaitlin with the host code "Flashlight"

TANK!

Baby Steel!

Right at 7pm the first night I was there, Tyler looked at me and asked, "Do you like to watch Wheel of Fortune, cuz we watch it every night!" I just laughed and explained that I was just on WoF as a contestant...so that was fun! We watched Jeopardy, too, so I knew we were a good match! =)

For CI that week, I helped out at a place called Beauty From Ashes, a non-profit that helps victims of human-trafficking escape that lifestyle and stand on their own. They offer meals, counseling, and all sorts of services to help victims rebuild their lives. It's an amazing organization. We helped them with gardening and planting around their facility with a garden that the Beauty from Ashes women will help maintain. It as a LOT of work for the 9 of us, but we worked all day and got a lot of good work done. I hope our efforts make a difference in the future!

Katy, Claudia, Katie, Anna, me, McKenzie, Kelli, Collin, and Sean

Our cast celebrated Valentine's Day in Fort Myers. We had a busy day full of internal work within the cast, but the day was certainly filled with hugs, candy, and lots of love!

This particular picture isn't from Valentine's Day, but it sums the day up pretty well! =)

Kaitlin, Tyler, and I hung low that week, which was good and what I needed. It was like being back in college and hanging out with friends at the end of every day. On Friday we went out to join some of Tyler's family for his cousin's birthday celebration, then went to the Bass Pro Shop (My first trip to one...I've never seen so much camo in one place before! haha), then out for Froyo. Then on Saturday we slept in, had breakfast, and did some errands before having to get me to the parade drop off later that evening.

Steel was quite relaxed while we enjoyed Froyo! =P

Speaking of parade...we were in the Edison Festival of Light parade. Ft. Myers, FL was the winter home for Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, so the town throws a huge parade every year. I'll do a separate post just on the parade since there are so many great pictures that our photo assistants captured!

We had a double show day on Sunday, one at 2pm and one at 6pm. It was great performing for the Ft. Myers community, and my host parents from Lakeland came to both shows. (We'll be seeing more of them in the future!)

Edward and Jessica with all of their girls from our time in Lakeland. They brought us Valentines!

With Kaitlin and Tyler