The Wedding Moon Tour. Jersey-Miami-AMI-Orlando Day 1. Miami With a Birthday :)

[Vanillapod]

I woke at about 4am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I sat watching the cruise ships from our bed and caught up with yesterday's report.
OH woke shortly after so we went out into the balcony to watch the sunrise together
We were surprised by how peaceful it all seemed.
I'd had in my mind that Miami was a 24/7 party town?
DS stumbled out of his bed and joined us just in time and then it was time to pack up and meet the birthday girl downstairs for a quick swim before our brunch reservation at 11.
The kids enjoyed an early morning swim whilst we went on the hunt for some birthday champagne.
Now I wouldn't usually drink so early but

1. It's a birthday
2. We're on holiday
3. We're in Miami

Anyhoo, we were looked at like we had 2 heads. They seemed pretty disgusted actually
We thought anything went in Miami?
It was a fruitless mission so we got the kids showered, changed, packed the last few bits up, checked out and booked 2 taxis to YardBird.

Here are a few pics of The Grand Beach Hotel Surfside

Über to YardBird was quick and easy (the same can't be said for the journey back)
And the good was fantastic.
They had champagne there too and were perfectly happy to sell it to us

We had the following...
Green Tomato BLT. Wow, this was amazing but I donated 1 stack to DS. It's apparently their own home cured bacon. The flavour was just incredible.

DS chose Mac and cheese. No idea why because he was never going to be full after that. He's ALWAYS hungry. He loved it though

OH went for a brisket sandwich which was almost like a fried bread. It came with the best fries I've ever tasted. I forgot to try his but everyone else did and said it was delicious.

The birthday girl went for eggs Benedict which was so good but so rich!

The small ones shared a waffle and a pancake. These came with loads of amazing toppings but they had those on the side only choosing to have the dulce de leche, chocolate drops and bourbon maple
There was a pot of some bourbon, caramel, maple concoction with banana in it which I could have single handedly polished off

Brisket biscuits. Also really good apparently.

We also shared this between us just because it's their signature dish and we were curious
Chicken and waffles with spiced watermelon.
I absolutely loved this particularly with the watermelon :p

We had a really good server who went out of her way to ensure we had a really lovely meal.
She then brought us these maple and bacon doughnuts which were incredible. I just had a small chunk!

**Wow! I've been so rubbish with this but 3 kids... How do you lot do it? ! Just the 3 of us again for a couple of days so I'm going to do my best to catch up but it'll be pretty lax until we head up to Orlando I'm afraid**

So we left YardBird and decided to walk as far as we could manage before the heat got to is all.
I realised about a mile in that my flip flops were so uncomfortable because they were on the wrong feet
This was very amusing for the children!
I think we walked for about 45 minutes before it got too much so we popped into a shop on Espanola Way (really cool) for drinks.

I picked up 4 X 1 litre bottles and the conversation went a bit like this...

"Hello, Just these please"

"That's $60"

"$60?! " (All 4 adults in unison)


"Yes $60"

"As in six, zero?"

"No! One, six. Sixty!"

Phew!

Anyway, water purchased and drunk we decided to uber it back to the hotel so we ordered 2 cabs for the 7 of us.

Ours was driven by Jorge and at first I was so busy chatting to the boys that I hadn't looked at where we were. I looked up and noticed we'd gone back over the water and were headed for the airport!
In a completely involuntary move I shouted in mild panic "erm, where on earth are we going?"
OH then realising my imagination was running away with me said "you're taking is a pretty weird way mate" (ha! He never calls anyone mate! He was playing it cool!)
The driver said nothing and just kept driving!
I was completely ready to jump out of the cab but what about the boys? They'd get hurt and one of them isn't even ours.
OH then said more forcibly "this isn't the way, we booked you to take us to The Grand Beach Hotel Surfside. You need to turn around now."
Jorge eventually spoke, turned the car and OH had to direct him.
I was sooooo relieved when we got back (as were ours friends who wondered where the hell we'd got to with their child)
Cheeky beggar charged us $24 for that journey too when we checked PayPal. :angry: It was supposed to be roughly $10 and it's not our fault he was completely useless. Can't find anyway of claiming it back either.
Anyway, we were back thank goodness.
The dads took the kids to the pool briefly whilst us ladies went up to the sky bar for a quick mojito
Here are a couple of pics of the amazing view

After that it was a quick trip to publix for water, cereal, snacks etc then all into the cars and on our way to AMI.
20 minutes in a small person needed a wee so we stopped off at a subway. They kindly gave us the key to an outside loo which I must say was spotlessly clean but the area was interesting.

The doors faced some gardens and residents came down to the fence to just stare. They didn't say anything but it was a little unnerving.
Back in the cars and off we went.
We had a route but one the exit we needed to take was shut with no diversion in place.
We tried to navigate around it but got lost so decided to pull over and re-route. We called our friends so they knew what we were up to and we set about finding a safe place...
Again, I have no idea where we were (It didn't seem ideal) but getting out of the car seemed like a silly idea (to OH and I anyway)
We parked up and one friend hopped out and came over to our window to work it out. We just had it sorted when the other appeared at the window too.
He said the following with a look of half amusement half disbelief;
"I don't wish to alarm anyone but I've just found this on the floor"
He held something up and said
"A bullet casing"


Oh how we laughed... nervously...
We got in, locked the doors passing the STI and HIV van doing the rounds. (Obviously an invaluable service but we all
giggled about it being like an Ice cream van Driving around) and finally made it to AMI at about 9 ish in the end.
I have no recollection of eating anything. The children must have done, so I think we chose our rooms, had a quick swim and headed to bed.

Will give you all a little tour in the morning

Thanks for sticking with it! X