Home from Vacation

My vacation was awesome, but I am so glad to be home.  Florida is a beautiful place to go to, however it is extremely hot and humid!  I have never been more thankful for air conditioning.  We were there for a week and stayed in Fort Myers for four days and Miami for two days.  For the first four days we spent most of our time at the Germain Hockey Arena for the NARCh Finals that amazing boyfriend was coaching his travel team of 10 and under kids.  After that was over, we drove down to Miami Beach where we stayed in a hotel right on the beach and where all the nightlife was.  And like I promised, I took a lot of pictures, so enjoy...

waiting at the airport for our flight

With barely any traffic, we arrived at the airport around 9am.  We walked right to the front to drop off our luggage and as we were walking to stand in line for security check, a lady who worked at the airport came to the end of the line where we were and escorted all of us to another security line, where we then got to be first in line.  After a quick check-in, we got some snacks and sat around for our flight.

we were right by the wing of the plane

amazing boyfriend making funny faces

more funny faces

a little note he left me while I was doing my puzzle book

When amazing boyfriend and I first arrived at the airport in Florida, we had to go pick up our rental car.  Now, I let him be in charge of this, and bless him, but he booked a car on the first place he found, so we were looking to spend around $600 for a six day car rental (which was almost as much as our flights).  So we go to the 'well known car rental place' to pay for our car, and they want to tack on almost $200 more for insurance purposes.  I was like "what!?"  Thank goodness our card got declined, because when we went to another car rental place just 15 feet away, we were only charged $250!!  The lady looked at us like we were crazy when we told her they wanted to charge us over $800 for a car.  And we were getting just as nice a car as at the other company (a little bit smaller, but still).  We got our car and headed the two hours across Florida to our hotel in Fort Myers.  It was dark and raining with lighting and thunder, but it was so pretty, and hot.  When we finally got to our hotel, we went straight to our room and crashed!

The next day we got up and headed to the rink for the first game.  All the little Rink Rats were there when we got there, ready to play.

They didn't play too great the first two games, but they still won.  The team, however, mercied the next team and we were so proud of them!

It rained a lot the first few days, with thunder and lightning.  It was weird to have it be almost 90 degrees outside and warm rain coming down.  Now, I hate the rain, but out there, it was almost nice.  And the sky out there after it rains, is so beautiful!  After one of the games, it was raining pretty hard, so amazing boyfriend and I joined some friends from the team to go see Harry Potter.  I was bad and went to see it before seeing the last two or three.  Oh well, I can catch up later and put it all together.

Let me go back a little bit...after the last game, before we went to the movie theater, the girl in the black tank top above came up to me and asked for my room key.  At first I was like, umm why?  And she said that the Rink Rat kids wanted to prank their coach, amazing boyfriend.  I was a little hesitant at first because it was my room too that they were going to be doing stuff to.  I finally decided that I would give it to her, but I made her promise that they wouldn't touch anything of mine.  So while we were at the movies waiting in line for the movie, she told me that the kids were going to our room to do the "prank." Now as we were driving back to our hotel room after the movie, amazing boyfriend asks me if I have my hotel key.  I immediately think he knows, but I try to act as cool as I can and tell him yes.  We walk all the way to our room and he then looks at me for my key.  So I put my hand in my purse to "get" the key, knowing I'm not going to find it.  I had to think quickly, so I told him I couldn't find it and that I probably thought I grabbed it, but didn't.  I thought he knew about the prank, and was holding out on his key, but then he said he didn't bring his.  He then picked up my purse and started to search through it, so phew he didn't know.  I told him to just go back down to the front desk and ask for a spare key.  While he did that, two of the girls who were apart of the prank came out of their rooms down the hallway and I told them what happened and we all started giggling.  Amazing boyfriend quickly came back with another key and we all walked down to our room.  He opened the door and to my surprise, it was all decorated for ME!  The kids all knew my birthday was in a few days, so they decorated it with balloons and streamers.  All in all, I was the one who got pranked!  But I felt so loved and thankful, because I barely know these kids and their families and they went and did all of this for me!  Thank you again Rink Rat families!!

The next day amazing boyfriend and I ate at a place called The Cracker Barrel.  It was a gift shop/restaurant.  It had a country homestyle feel to it, and had pretty good food.  We then had some more hockey games to go to, which they mercied the other teams again!

Afterwards we ate at this hole in the wall chinese place (thinking it was a full-on chinese restaurant), and it was hot in there and the guy who worked in the back, later on, kept hocking loogies...yuck!  So we ordered fried rice and chicken chow mein.  I wish I would've known that chow mein isn't what it is at a fast food chain.  I know now that it's called lo mein.  Never will I make that mistake again!  I almost threw up just looking at it!  The fried rice, however, was delicious.

Since we had such an interesting horrible experience at the chinese place, something yummy was in order.  Thank goodness a Dairy Queen was just across the way.  Triple chocolate Blizzard here I come!

the street these places were on was called Fiddlesticks,
I just had to take a picture

The next day we were off to yet another game (which, of course, they won).  We met up with amazing boyfriend's dad who was also there coaching.

We had heard a lot about this Rib City place that was just awesome, so after we were done at the rink, we headed over there for some ribs...yum!!  I have to say this place had the best ribs I've ever tasted!  We also got some breaded shrimp to go with it, which was also delicious.  The service there was also great.  The waitress was always asking if we were ok and if we needed anything.  I just wish they would bring one out here to California!  A few of the kids and parents from our team were there too, and as they were leaving, they came by our table and told us that they took care of our bill.  How sweet awesome are they!?

Now I told you before that the sky in Florida after it rains (and even when it doesn't) is beautiful, well take a look...

Pretty huh?  Well the next day, was my birthday, the day of the championship game, and the day we were going to drive to Miami.  Before the game, it was so cool, they turned off all the lights in the arena and did a spot light for each player as they announced their name.  And if you didn't already guess, we won the championship.  It was a close call at first, but after the first period, the little guys really kicked up the heat.

the older Rink Rat players came to help cheer us on
(if you can see, they took off their shirts and were
waving them around over their heads) 

dog pile after the game was over

holding the huge trophy they won

team picture

I took so many pictures afterwards, but here are a few of my favorites...

Me and the only girl on the team
(she's my favorite)

amazing boyfriend holding the trophy 

they made me get in for the picture too 

amazing boyfriend and his daddy

After that was all over, it was finally time to head to Miami!  But first, amazing boyfriend had a little surprise for me.  We headed to a Kay's Jewelers store, where he bought me a necklace I've had my eye on for awhile.  My nickname he has for me is 'Panda' so that's why.

 Ok, now we were on the road.  We got some slurpees and were off.  It took us around 2 hours to get to Miami Beach...we got lost a little.  When we finally found our hotel, there was no parking, because where our hotel was was like Vegas on the beach - people everywhere and paid parking only.  And of course valet parking was $25 a day.  Finally after figuring out parking, we check in to our hotel and it is so big and beautiful!  It was like a little apartment, only $89/night and right on the beach!

After settling in, we went downstairs to pick one of the many restaurants on the strip to eat at.  We picked the one right next to our hotel that was an Italian restaurant.  Once we were done, we decided to go check out the beach.

We found this clock wall that seemed to be a tourist attraction.  At times there were lines just to take a picture in front of it.  So, since it was my birthday, I had to be part of the crowd and take a picture.  We walked around looking at all the different sites and grabbed a big gigantic drink at one of the restaurants that had a live band playing.  When it hit about midnight, we were still sweating, so ice cream was definitely in order.

The next day was our one and only actual full day to experience Miami Beach.  We slept in, grabbed some lunch, and headed straight to the beach.  On this beach they have lounge chairs and umbrellas set up everywhere.  We didn't know any better, so amazing boyfriend and I grabbed the first open one we saw.  Well, as soon as we sat down, a man comes up to us and tells us that it costs money to use these, and you can only pay in cash.  Great...we don't have any cash, and we don't feel like spending a fortune just to lounge at the beach.  So we grabbed our towels and placed them on the burning sand and ran straight for the water.  The water was cool at first, but soon felt like I was sitting in bath water.  You could walk out for about a hundred or two feet and still only be up to your knees/waist, but there was no way I was going out that far...about 10-15 feet was good enough for me.

For dinner, we went to the same place we got drinks the night before, because if we got there before 8pm we could get happy hour which was half off all drinks.  We're not big drinkers, but yah...we took the 50% off happy hour to the extreme...but hey, we're on vacation.

we got to take these home!!

margarita beer drink
(so good!) 

yupp...drink #3

the band that was playing

Everything was so good, but thank goodness everything was half off, because our bill could have been way worse...

yikes!
(but gratuity was included)

Once we paid our bill and left the restaurant, we headed back to our hotel room because nature was calling after all those drinks we had.  We then headed back down to go to the gift shop that was next to our hotel to get a few take home items.  As we were leaving the gift shop we decided to walk around for a little bit, since it was still kind of early.  While we're walking, amazing boyfriend asks if I want to go get another drink...um, say what!? Haha.  I didn't know about him, but I was doing pretty good.  So, off to another restaurant to get us him a drink.  We ordered a mai tai, and I'm thinking it was just going to be in a regular glass, but no, it was in the big goblet glasses like we've had before.  I took a few sips, but I told him that this was going to be all him!

The next morning was our last day of our vacation.  We went down to the restaurant that was connected to our hotel and grabbed some breakfast.  The waitress was so nice, she gave us complimentary mimosas.  And mmm, I love my mimosas.  After we went back up to our hotel to pack up and check-out.  We put our bathing suits on and headed to the beach until it was time to head to the airport.

When we finally got to the airport, we were starving, so we ate at the Chili's and guess what, got margaritas!  Yum!  After a long five hour flight, we were finally back home and out of the extreme heat. We had so much fun, but it was nice to finally be home.  Next year I think we'll pick a little bit cooler vacation spot.