Miami!

We had an opportunity to go to Miami Beach for a couple of days this past week and had a great trip! Ava had the opportunity to spend a couple of days with Grandma and Grandpa and it sounds like they all enjoyed that trip just as well:)

I had some meetings and so on to attend during part of the days, but still had some beach and pool time. Our friends Curt and Amy also went with us, so made it even more fun to share the sunshine and warm water with friends. Our trip started pretty uneventful - enjoying the spectacular hotel, pool area and beach. Our hotel was amazing - one of THE hot spots in Miami we learned. Here are some pictures of the hotel area:

And, yes, that yellow outfit was the "uniform" of the pool waitresses!

This hotel was huge, with about 6 different pools, 11 restaraunts, a spa, and a VERY hot, trendy, Miami night club. Friday afternoon, we were spending some time in the pool and hot tub as Jennifer Lopez and her kids were relaxing around the pool as well - kind of cool to think that we were at the same pool and hotel as a celebrity. But after watching all the security guys around her and so on, we all decided that we would not want that type of life.

Friday night, we watched people entering the club at the hotel. Leave it to say that we would not fit in with this type of crowd - to start, I had WAY to many clothes on and was missing the 5-6" heels! The club had a $30 cover charge and a strict dress and appearance code. I thought that this type of selection process only happened in the movies, but I learned differently. Basically, people crowded up around a roped off area near the entrance as the bouncers started pointing to people to let in. They ensured that the guy-girl ratio was kept very high and that the girls had a lot of skin showing. It didn't hurt if you happened to tuck a $100 or so in the bouner's back pocket:). Obviously, some Midwestern country-folk were not the normal type for this arena!

We did enjoy some great times in the hot tub and walking along the beach though. Curt and John were adventurous to swim in the ocean, but Amy & I decided the warm water of the pool or hot tub beat out the ocean:).

After a nice trip, we went to the airport to head home and John got detained by security after screening his carry-on bag. We watched as the security lady took EVERYTHING out of his bag, ruffling through it all as she went. We didn't catch on as she asked John if he was a hunter. She knew exactly what she was looking for from the scanner, but wasn't finding it. We finally realized that she was looking for a bullet! John had a .22 shell in his jacket pocket! It had evidently gotten left in that pocket from when he was hunting skunks in our yard the past fall. Since it was a live round, she had to call the Miami police in and they took John's statement and wrote up a report and all! Good thing we got there in plenty of time to catch our flight. Hopefully he is not added to a terror watch list or anything now - we will find out next time we fly (early March). Overall, it was a fun trip and we had some memorable experiences. But I was glad to get home and see Ava as well!