Mommy and Daddy spend some time alone!

Wow, this trip is going by so fast, just like always. I swear we just hit the ground here and it's almost over. Ugh. And then back to work and the grind. I'll say it again. Ugh.

Anyway, I don't want to make this too long because I need to get to bed. We are going to be visiting my Mom's friends at the surgery center tomorrow, which will be so much fun. I love the way they all ooohh and ahhhh over Tommy. Yes, I'm guilty of the sin of pride. :-) I think that's one that trips up Moms a lot.

We have been having a wonderful time. We did NOTHING on the Friday after Thanksgiving except hang out. I slept late. It was wonderful. On Saturday I went to get Emmett at the airport. I'm as bad as my Mom sometimes, I swear, crying as he walks through the security. I covered it up well, though, and I don't think he noticed haha. We drove back to my parents house and pretty quickly got changed into swimsuits and went to hang out in the jacuzzi with my parents and have some wine. Well, I learned a valuable lesson - be CAREFUL when drinking with my parents! haha They'd probably say the same thing, but, and this is SO WEIRD, all four of us got pretty blitzed. The only one of us who even remembers going to bed is my Mother. It turns out we drank about 61/2 bottles of wine! What were we all thinking!?! The next day we all slept late and some of us were nursing some pretty serious hangovers. But we did have a really good time. On Sunday my parents took us to this cool restaurant called Sea Watch which is on the coast, awesome views and great food. It was kind of funny that none of us wanted a glass of wine, even in that nice restaurant! Emmett, Tommy and I took a little walk along the ocean while we were waiting for our food - Emmett was excited to get to swim in the Atlantic for the first time - well, at least on this side of the Atlantic. We were laughing because I said that his saying that made me want to choke him. I've wanted to go to Europe for so long and him saying that he swam in the Atlantic but it was in France is like rubbing the proverbial salt in the wounds. I'm so envious!

Anyway, I have a habit of digressing...

After the meal (I had lobster, mmmmmm) we drove to this light show in the park which Tommy really seemed to enjoy. You drive along the parkway and there are all these huge Christmas light displays with different themes, animals, etc. Tommy got a kick out of it and even more because he got to sit in his Grandmother's lap in the front seat rather than in his car seat. When we went to leave the park he had a little fit about getting into his car seat, but then realized it wasn't going to work and was okay.

We were all pretty tired on Sunday night so after Emmett and I made sure we had all our plans in place we all went to bed. On Monday morning Emmett and I got up at 7:30 to begin our big outing! My Mom and Jerry planned to take Tommy to the zoo (http://www.thomasnolan.com/photos/florida1104) while Emmett and I were heading out for 2 days and 1 night all by ourselves! YAY! (http://www.thomasnolan.com/photos/emmel1104) We left about 8:30, planning to travel to the Everglades for our first stop. Unfortunately, what should have been about a 2 hour drive ended up being more like 3 because we missed a turn off for the turnpike and ended up taking surface streets through Miami. The only good thing was that we found a Wild Oats (big YAY - like Whole Foods, only bigger) and got some coffee and bagels (with creme fraiche - mmmmm yummy!) and an Adbusters magazine and headed back on our way. We got to the Everglades around 11:00am. The good news was that I was concerned because the area that I wanted to go to was about 38 miles into the park and I didn't know what the speed limits would be, but they turned out to be 55 mph so we were able to do that last part pretty quickly. We stopped at one point just inside the park to get out and stretch our legs. While we were out there Emmett was surprised to get bitten by about 3 mosquitos. It was such a warm and sunny day and so early in the day that that was kind of surprising, but whatever. The area we went to was around the Flamingo visitor's center - the southern part of the park. Once we got there we headed to Eco Pond which was were I'd read that we were most likely to see alligators. We walked up onto this observation deck and while we were standing there we saw this alligator get out of the pond and walk across the trail and plop himself down in the brush next to the trail. We just sort of watched him and then Emmett said to me, "I don't know about that walk". It was pretty funny. Just seeing that alligator crossing the path so nonchalantly was a bit disconcerting, I have to admit. Eventually we talked ourselves into doing the walk and we were glad because it was really pretty, lots of gorgeous birds, we saw a couple of alligators and it was a nice relaxing stroll to take around this pond. It was so quiet out there and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. We did notice, however, that there were tremendous numbers of mosquitos that came in greater and greater numbers the longer we were out there. So we decided to go to the visitors center and check out the gift shop for bug spray.

The gift shop folks were nice and we got the bug spray along with a squeeky toy alligator for Thomas and couple of other things and then headed back out. Before we left the parking lot though Emmett declared that he was hungry and we went to the restaurant there for lunch. I have to admit we were both surprised by how good the restaurant was. The menu was great and the view was positively spectacular. It was on the second floor of the visitors center and looked out across the bay. Our waiter was great and we really enjoyed our meal. I had a grilled mahi sandwich and fries and Emmett had a blackened chicken sandwich and sweet potato fries. After the lunch we headed out to do a 3.2 mile hike on Snake Bight trail. We were told that if there were flamingos in the park that's where we'd find them. Emmett was looking at the time and saying that we wouldn't have time to finish the hike if we were going to get back to South Beach at a reasonable hour, but I was really wanting to get some exercise. We covered ourselves in the bug spray and headed out. I was walking as fast as possible, primarily to cover ground as quickly as possible because I wanted to finish the hike. It turned out to be a good idea because the mosquito population was the most incredible that I've ever seen. In spite of the liberal use of the DEET-based bug spray, the mosquitos continued to bite Emmett. Additionally, they were flying into his nose and mouth and every so often he would be trying to cough them up. It was truly gross. I didn't get any more bites, but every time I swung my arms when we were walking I would hit a bunch of them since they were literally swarming around me. It was truly awful. We only made it about a half mile in before Emmett said, "this is not fun. I want to turn around". I had to say that I couldn't blame him a bit. It was freaking me out and I wasn't getting bit or swallowing them. He was getting it much worse. So we turned back and I was bummed to miss out on seeing the flamingos in the wild, but happy to be getting out of that mosquito infested place. Yuck! We were thinking of going back next year, but we may have to rethink what time of year we go because those mosquitos are a real deterrent.

We got in the car and headed back to the Miami area. It didn't take us nearly as long and we got to our hotel at 4pm. It was called the Beacon Hotel and was pretty nice. The location was great, right in the heart of South Beach, across from the beach. It was an art deco hotel, which was cool. Not a lot of amenities, but then we wouldn't have used them, anyway. We went into our room and changed our clothes and decided to walk around for a while, people watch and check out the area (oh yes, and of course I called to check on Thomas who had just gotten back from the zoo and had a wonderful time! When they put him in the car he was sitting in his seat looking lost in thought and then said, "fun zoo! water!" because my Mom stripped off all his clothes and let him play in the fountains at the zoo - which was apparently his favorite part). We went into a couple of shops, but didn't buy anything. I swear if you are bigger than a size 4 it would be hard to find anything appropriate to wear in those shops. It was fun looking at all the cool places though and watching all the different kinds of people. We finally came back to our hotel and decided to have a glass of wine and some appetizers. They had an outdoor seating area so we were able to sit and watch the people walk by. It was so nice and so relaxing. But VERY pricey. We each had a glass of wine, I had a bowl of soup (okay, it was lobster bisque, but it's still just soup!) and Emmett had a SMALL shrimp cocktail (5 very small shrimp) and the bill was $52. Yikes! But, ya know, we were on vacation and that's just so rare that you just shrug it off.

After that we headed upstairs to shower, change our clothes again and go out to dinner. I ended up taking a very nice little nap too. It felt so good to just be able to take a nap when I felt like it! We drove into Miami to Calle Ocho which is where Little Havana is. We went to the restaurant that Tia Loca recommended (my Mom's friend/our family friend - who is from Cuba) which was called Versailles. It was fantastic! The price was right and it was very authentic. In fact, we couldn't get a waiter who spoke English. That was okay, though, because at least the menu was in English and Spanish and we were able to point and fumble our way through it. I had a Cuban sampler, which had one of just about everything and Emmett had a Cuban roasted pork dinner. For appetizers we had empenadas, which I always love. Yummy! We both had Cuban coffee for dessert - that is I swear the very best coffee! So delicious! Very strong but smooth and not at all bitter. I just love it! The whole meal with the coffees cost less than the appetizers we had earlier. Crazy.

After that we had planned to go to some nightclubs and go dancing, but it turns out that Monday is a horrible day to do that. The first one that Emmett had found didn't exist any longer (after being named best new club in April 2004, talk about short-lived!) and the second one was closed. Oh well. We did a lot of walking around. My feet hurt so bad because I injured my left foot somehow on Saturday night and then the sandals I was wearing that night gave me a huge blister on my right foot. Ugh. But I was having too much fun walking and talking with Emmett to notice that night. We finally found a really cool club about 2 blocks from our hotel. It was great! (http://www.mangostropicalcafe.com/index2.htm) Very touristy, but it was fun and that's all that mattered to us. It had a great salsa/latin band and quite a few people dancing and having a good time. They had a bunch of scantily clad waitstaff and this little area on one of the bars that they were using as a stage and they were doing some awesome dancing! Very sexy but not sleazy. They were scantily clad but they left their clothes on and they weren't dancing on a pole but were, for the most part, talented dancers. Also - there were girls and guys which made it even better!! :-) We found a good place to sit at the bar and watch the entertainment and had a couple of umbrella drinks. After an hour or two we headed back to our hotel. It was about 2am by then and it had a been a long day, but filled with lots of fun. It was so nice to be able to go out and do things as adults. What a relief.

This morning we got up late, about 10:30am. After a brief call to again check on Thomas, I managed to get a late check out and we were able to stay at the hotel until 1pm. We got showered and dressed and went to this little Cuban diner for breakfast. I have to say that aside from the always-delicious Cuban coffee, the food at the diner was very mediocre. I had steak and eggs and the "steak" was not what I think of when I think of steak, but it was well-marinated which saved it from being like shoe leather. The hash browns were actually patties that were obviously from a box somewhere. I know I have become a terrible food snob. I guess that I've been living in San Francisco too long haha. It was and interesting place to people watch, though, and the service was fast so we had time to linger over our coffee after we ate, and peruse the Miami Herald newspaper. After breakfast we went back to the hotel and changed for the beach and then checked out. Emmett took our stuff to the car and we headed over to the beach. The weather was so-so. It was at least warm enough to lay on the beach and enjoy it, which is more than you can say for the beaches in San Francisco about 95% of the time. There were a lot of intermittent clouds and it got slightly chilly when the sun was covered, but never so much that we'd be uncomfortable. It was so decadent to just lay in a lounger and let the sun beat down on me and read our magazines and get up and take a dip in the super warm ocean whenever we wanted to. I love my son more than life itself, but sometimes it is nice to be away from him for a while and be able to just relax and just be me and not Tommy's Mommy for a little while. The beach is one of the greatest luxuries because the dangers there make it so that when Tommy is with me I have to be so alert at all times.

After lots of lounging and frolicking in the surf it was time to leave. We rinsed off in the showers and I changed my clothes in the parking garage with Emmett holding up my sarong as a curtain between me and anyone who might come into the garage. We headed back to Calle Ocho and back to Versailles for lunch. This time, though, we got carry out from the window. DELICIOUS Cuban sandwiches on freshly made bread - to die for, with plaintain chips. They also have a bakery of the same name there and the smell was killing me so I went over to check it out and got a few pastries to bring home to my parents.

We drove to Emmett's hotel for his business conference. It's the Hyatt Pier 66. Really nice hotel. Out of our normal price range at >$200 per night, but a cool place to check out. I was surprised it was pretty average overall. The only really cool thing about it was the HUGE swimming pool with a 15 foot waterfall on one part that I was dying to swim under. The water was heated to about 90 degrees, like bath water. They had a HUGE outdoor jacuzzi, too. I have to admit I was a bit envious that he was getting to spend the rest of the week there. Of course I love visiting with my family, but it would be nice to do some more lounging by the pool and get some room service. Unfortunately, Emmett has a company assigned roommate on the trip, so that wasn't a possibility. We got a drink from the poolside bar and sat and talked for a little while longer then I got in the car and we said our goodbyes and I headed back to my parents. It was good to see Tommy and he definitely seemed happy to see me. He LOVED his presents, that alligator from the Everglades gift shop and also a crazy pair of frog sunglasses that I bought him at the Hyatt gift shop. My mother also bought him another set of those miniature animals that he likes so much, so he's been pretty much getting spoiled rotten. I read him Green Eggs and Ham and put him to sleep. My precious boy. One thing about getting away is that it really refreshes you and makes me appreciate my son that much more.

Well, I better head off to bed - I'm exhausted! It's been a long but very refreshing couple of days.

Love,
Melissa