Bienvenido a Miami!

The Miami trip was a blast! Jaimi met me in Atlanta and we drove down to Miami last week. Yes we were assaulted by a homeless man who chased us down the street throwing rocks at our heads and it was so humid I thought my face would melt off, but we got to see Eva, Joey, and the kids on the way down and we stayed at an awesome hotel right on the beach! It was so fun!

Before we left on our road trip, my dad surprised us with this cooler packed with sandwiches and drinks! We died laughing because he not only cut our sandwiches in half for us and put toothpicks in them, he packed us yogurt, 100-calorie packs, and Fuze! Isn't he the cutest? We started laughing every time we opened up the cooler!



Before we got to Miami, we stopped to spend the night in Orlando with Eva, Joey, and the kids. That may have been my favorite night of the trip! First of all, Emree is just like one of the girls! She is totally fun to hang out with and not surprisingly, we have the same musical taste ;) And she stayed up till 2 in the morning with us singing and chatting away, until she finally conked out on the floor! Rett was KILLING me too! He is so incredibly cute! He makes me laugh because he is so sweet and shy and then I hear him trying to get Emree to wrestle with him yelling, "Emree, you want piece of me?" I don't think anything could be funnier! And of course Rye is the best little boy on Earth. He is just so happy and easy going and he loooved Jaimi! Poor Eva was at Girls Camp all day so we only got to hang out for a few hours. I was so sad! Summer is usually the only time I can count on seeing my Eva! I have always hated Girls Camp and I now I have even more of a reason! I'm still so grateful though to have seen all of them at all. I wish we lived closer...I miss you guys so much!

This is me and Emree taking a self-portrait (go figure, I know)

Emree and the new puppy, Chica

Cute little Rett trying to hide from me

Rye and Rett eating breakfast (Note, Rye's breakfast is a cupcake! That's my kind of kid!)

This is Eva's new puppy, Chica! I love her! And I don't know how I didn't get a picture of Rocky!

Rye and Chica

Me and Eva (Eva, I hate that it is first thing in the morning and you have no makeup on and still look good! Not fair.)

Jaimi, Eva, and Emree

After spending the night in Orlando, we woke up in the morning and drove to M-I-A-M-I! First stop....my old house!

This is my old house from the back


We also drove by your old house, Catherine. I thought you would want to see the giant lions that now guard your old manse! Also, I am pretty sure your mom would not have approved of that shade of...salmon??


I also stopped by our old neighbor, Luther Campbell's, house. Oh yeah, you might know him from a little rap group called 2 Live Crew! You know your favorite 90's song was Me So Horny...or not.



After stopping by my old neighborhood, I wanted to go drive by my old high school. Since summer school was going on, we were able to walk right in...BIG mistake. My school is so ghetto now! I kept telling Jaimi, "I promise it wasn't like this when I lived here!" I should have stayed away, and kept the memory in tact!


My old friend, Vince, is on the Athletic Wall of Fame so I had to take this picture for him!

That's Vince on the bottom row, in the middle. I feel like I should have his autograph or something!

This sign on the wall inside American made me laugh. All of the former Patriots out there will get the irony, I'm sure!



Unfortunately, the tour of Hilarry's past does not end there...

This is me at my middle school...

and me at my pre-school (I know, this is totally ridiculous! Poor Jaimi had to sit through my whole tour!)I went to my elementary school too but it was raining when we were there and trust me, you do not want to see that picture!

To reward Jaimi for being such a good little tour-goer, I took her to Vicky Bakery, home of the world famous Cuban pastelitos! Jaimi looked as little bit like a deer in the headlights when she realized I wasn't kidding, no one in Miami speaks English! We had an especially hard time when I tried to order a sweet pastelito with "savory" meat. Eva told me to make sure I ordered one and I thought she was telling me that was the actual name of the pastelito!! Thank you, Eva ;) I wasn't embarrassed at the time, but in retrospect I should have been mortified!!!

Too bad you can't see the hideously tacky Dora the Explorer and Finding Nemo cakes in the window. Seriously, it's worth a stop just to see that!

After my walk down memory lane, we met my aunt, uncle, and cousins for dinner at Havana Harry's and then spent the night at their house. Jaimi and I had an impromptu photo shoot at my cousin's (again, go figure.)



The next morning, we headed over to South Beach and met one of my oldest friends, Amanda, for lunch on Lincoln Road. Lincoln Road is the a seven block stretch of upscale restaurants and shops that is only open to pedestrians. All of the restaurants on Lincoln Road are totally cute sidewalk cafes and we stopped for lunch at a really yummy sandwich/salad place called, VanDyk.




After shopping around Lincoln Road, we went to our hotel to check in which was RIGHT ON THE BEACH! My dad was so nice to treat us to a room at the Marseilles hotel right on Collins Avenue! We were even more delighted when we checked in and realized our room overlooked the ocean!! This is the view from our room...

And this is me trying to showcase the view of the pool and ocean...didn't work out so well, did it?


As soon as we checked in, we hightailed it down to the beach and I decided I had to go for a swim before dinner! Jaimi thinks I look like the Loch Ness monster in this picture. I might agree!


Ok, at this point, I have to remind you of how extremely, not fit for human life humid it is in Miami at this time of year. I had totally forgotten. I remember being little and my mom describing the feeling of being in Miami at this time of year to relatives as "breathing pudding." We looked so FOUL the entire trip! I felt like I was wet and dirty the whole time (and I was!) but the worst part was my hair!! Remember the episode of Friends where they are in Barbados and Monica's hair freaks out from the humidity?

That's me. It's not pretty. So Eva gave me another bit of great advice (insert sarcasm here ;) She told me that last week when she was at the beach, she got her hair wet and the salt water made her hair dry so beautifully, like Jennifer Aniston waves! So I decided to dunk my head in the ocean before dinner, thinking it had to be better than trying to go straight and what happened next was not pretty. So much for mother nature. I'll stick to Bumble and Bumble next time!

This is Jaimi and I eating dinner on Ocean Drive at Lario's, which is Gloria Estefan's cuban restaurant. Aside from my sweaty face and freakish hair, this was totally one of the highlights of the trip! Ocean Drive has always been my favorite place in the world! It was so fun to eat write on the sidewalk and people watch. In high school, I was so not allowed to go to South Beach with my friends (my dad was a cop, remember?) but we used to say we were going to a movie and go anyway (Sorry Mom and Dad!) It has always been the most exciting place in the world to me!

This is a view of Ocean Drive from the beach


After Lario's we went to Bayside to see Amanda again and we drank strawberry daiquiris while listening to bands play right on the water! That is the life!





The next day, we spent ALL day on the beach laying out and swimming. It seriously felt like the best day of my life. I kept telling Jaimi, in the middle of the school year when I am complaining about school and my students are being naughty (that would never happen, right?) I am going to remember this day and why I teach! (Oh yeah, I mean after the whole inspiring children thing ;)

We filled our trusty cooler and read every magazine and chick lit book within a 10 mile radius and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!








After laying on the beach for 6 hours, we got cleaned up (temporarily anyway!) and went to Coconut Grove for dinner. Believe it or not, we have no pictures because it was so humid the camera kept fogging up!

We went back to Ocean Drive to hang out that night and lo and behold, we spotted the tree that Miss Britney writhes and wriggles around in in the Sometimes video! This is me, lamely attempting to sing Sometimes from the same tree! (Note the humidity-induced Farrah Fawcett hair-It feathered, people! My hair feathered! I'm never going back to Florida!)



This is right as I was falling out of the tree! There is a reason people my age should not climb trees.


This is Jaimi in front of the clock on Ocean Drive!


On our way out of Miami the next day, we snuck on to Star Island ( ok, we asked the guard oh so sweetly :) This is the view from one of the houses on Star Island. If I ever decide to play Powerball and I win, THIS is where I want to live. Maybe I can pay someone to deal with my Monica hair too!


Oh! And in case you wondering what K-Fed was up to last weekend, he was in Miami hosting a party at Mansion! Some guy gave us "VIP" passes but we chickened out of going. We didn't have anything skanky enough to wear and we didn't want to chance looking like those loser girls on TMZ trying to get into Villa!!