Party in the city where the heat is on

L and I headed south to Miami last weekend.  The warm, sunny weather was amazing (though we did not party all night on the beach til the break of dawn).  Mr. FBI is on an assignment this year in Miami, so we decided we needed to head down for a weekend and simultaneously enjoy spending time with fun friends and a free place to stay.  Mrs. FBI went down Thursday night and we joined them on Friday afternoon.  FYI - I still maintain that 4-day work weeks go by the slowest, but I do love working half days.  If you can't have a full day off, half days are the best! 

I'm now a huge fan of the flight to Miami, too.  The flight down was the smoothest flight ever and we were only delayed about 20 minutes for maintenance. (Almost every flight I get on these days seems to get delayed for some reason.  The last flight I was on was delayed 3 hours for maintenance.  The flight on the middle leg of that same trip also had problems.  Seriously, something happens 90% of the time for me this year.  It's not awesome.)  We were both extra happy with the flight to MIA because in addition to my ongoing bad luck with flights, L was coming off a really rough 24 hours.  He worked in Ohio and Midland last week, and he was supposed to fly from Midland to Reagan with a layover in at DFW on Thursday night and land around 12:30 ET.  He made it from Midland to Dallas just fine, but his flight from Dallas to Reagan was delayed til 10:30 p.m. CT and then it was cancelled altogether due to storms in Dallas.  Luckily his parents live pretty close to the airport so his dad came and rescued him and provided him with the comfort of a bed for the evening.  Down side: L checked his bag with EVERYTHING in it so he didn't have a toothbrush, change of clothes, or anything with him.  Unlike me, he does not keep spare t-shirts, shorts, toiletries, etc. at his parents house. (I pretty much live like a child of divorce and have duplicates of everything I might need at my parents' house for situations like this.  Plus it's a pain to travel with a lot of that stuff, although now I do it anyway because if we go to Dallas, we hit up both families and we always go to his parents' house first, so my spares don't help.  Oh well, such is life.)  L was back at DFW and on the 6:10 a.m. flight to DC.  When he landed, he discovered that his bag was lost (he learned later in the morning that it somehow ended up at Dulles) and when he called to check in with his boss, he received some frustrating news that required him to go into his office, which he wasn't planning on doing.  He also didn't get his bag delivered before we left the house to go back to Reagan for our flight to Miami.  It was quite the little morning he had.

So Miami... our hosts picked us up and immediately took us to CVS so L could get a razor and then we settled in to the condo.  Dinner that night was at a place on South Beach called A Fish Called Avalon (food was amazing, despite slow service due to the entire restaurant's computer system being knocked out by a massive thunderstorm that rolled through right after we landed).  After that, we walked up the beach and had cocktails at the Delano (awesome pool) and then walked inland to a place for a little dessert and some live music of the jazzy persuasion.

Saturday brought a gorgeous day of sunshine and a trip to the beach.  We were there for about 2 1/2 hours and while that may not sound like a lot of time, it was plenty for all four of us.  L is still burned to a crisp on half of his back (he was laying weird).  It's definitely sort of an ombre burn.  This was our view:

Just awful, right?  Hurts my eyes to look at it.  Pale sand and clear water = blech/THE WORST. 

Dinner that night was around the corner from the condo at B&B.  We stuck around the Brickell area for drinks before heading home for the night. 

The beauty of staying with these particular friends is that Mr. FBI happens to be quite the foodie and therefore made amazing restaurant reservations all weekend.  Sunday brunch was no exception and was actually both L's and my favorite meal of the whole trip.  Mr. FBI took us to his favorite restaurant, MGFD, in the design district.  I wish I'd taken pics of the food.  Sadly, all I have is a pic of the logo:

Cuisine is basically breakfast tapas.  L and I split orders of eggs, bacon, sourdough toast with house-made pineapple preserves and I tried the lemon ricotta pancakes.  I can't remember what else L ordered but EVERYTHING I tried was so fantastic and while I didn't try any of the other plates, they all looked amazing.  I highly recommend if you are looking for a totally sweet meal. 

Mrs. FBI and I dropped the boys off at the condo and then she and I headed to Ulta (we don't have Ultas anywhere near our houses here) and then she took me on a tour of where she lived while she was in school there (Coconut Grove and Coral Gables = not the worst places to live).  Then Mr. FBI took us all to the airport and we headed home, which was another super smooth flight.  Downside: finding two almost-flat tires when we finally found my car (which took a while... the three of us may or may not have wandered all over the wrong level in the garage for 30 minutes).  Seriously, I have the worst luck ever with tires, but so far, no further problems after inflating them again. 

More to come... just not enough time tonight.  But yea for fun trips!