I apologize if I missed any "reply" posts (my eyes are getting heavy after trying to keep up with all the subscribed threads).
Now, I've kept you in suspense long enough. What Nicki was talking about is the following.
Mark stopped for gas on Wednesday night and I ran into 7 Eleven to pay for it. I got $10 back and bought two $5 Monopoly scratch tickets. I gave one to Mark and scratched one myself. Mine was a loser. Mark scratched his and gave it to me and said, "did I just win $500." I said, "WHAT?" And I looked at it and said, "you sure did; and we are going to treat Nicki & Todd to dinner tomorrow night (meaning tonight). I told Mark to let me look at it again because I just couldn't believe it and I wanted to be sure he scratched the code at the bottom which he often forgets to do. I scratched under all the numbers and to my great surprise and shock he had TWO matching numbers and we won $1000 total. So today we drove to Ft. Myers (about an hour from Marco Island) to the district office and cashed in our winnings and had a delightful dinner with Nicki & Todd. I too, like Nicki, wish we had bought a condo from her (all Mark has said since we got here is that he could REALLY get used to living here).
I don't know if you'll understand this or not. I met Nicki here on the DIS about two years ago (it was right before our 2008 trip I think). It is like I found my long lost sister. We have just clicked and have become just like sisters. We love her and Todd and are so glad that they are a part of our lives.
As for the ticker, I don't know how that happened. But we are talking about doing a trip...but we are looking at arriving October 31 or November 1 and spending four or five days with Nicki and Todd at Disney and then going to Marco Island and spending more time with them there.
Here's a picture (the first of several, I'm sure) from our great time tonight: