Miami-part one

Sorry I took so long. These are the ones I had on my stinky disposable, but they turned out okay. All I gotta say is it was freaking marvelous.

Let me chronicle the journey for you from the very beginning....
Thursday, May 11, 2006-Woke up exhausted coz the hubby and I had a tiff the night before. My friend, who lives in Miami, happened to call me the night before I'm to fly out. Anyway, make a long story short, hubby has issue with said friend and the irony of it all is I wasn't even going to see him!! Ugh. Didn't matter. We went round and round so I didn't fall asleep till 2 a.m.

Went to work 11-7 p.m. and had one hell of an effed up day. Guest were demanding (lots of hand-holding required) and I had a boat load of orders to complete in the frameshop BEFORE I could leave. Can you say "stressed"?

Got home, fam-bam grabbed my bags and off to the airport. And, no, I did not eat dinner. Got to Long Beach with an hour and a half to spare (thank goodness), checked my large, VERY HEAVILY OVERLOADED suitcase and headed up to the restaurant and got some grub with the kids until it was time to board the plane.

8:30 p.m. I finally head out to the gate to get ready for boarding. The kids all give me hugs and tell me to have a good time. Hubby gives me a really big hug and several kisses and, as he waves me off, tells me to have fun, enjoy myself and not to think about anything but relaxing. (He was saying this as much to himself as he was to me coz of the night before). I waved them off and headed to the gate. Security was tight and the airport was PACKED! The plane to Fort Lauderdale was to board at 9:15, but the gate was so congested with special needs passengers that we didn't finish boarding until about five minutes to 10. Long Beach is a really small airport and the reason it took so long is you actually walk out onto the tarmack and board the plane that way. Anyone with a wheelchair or children required a lot of time. Anyone tired yet? No? Well, you will be.

10:15 p.m. Everyone is finally boarded and we're ready for take off. I was lucky enough to sit with two filipina women that were freaking hilarious! They were headed to Miami via Fort Lauderdale too and they were just as tired and restless as I was. We all agreed that it would be a very interesting flight with so many children on board. It was loud already and, as sure as the sun shines, when we took off, one of the young ones started screaming bloody murder! I felt bad coz, being a mom, you knew the childs ears had to be hurting from the change in pressure. But, from a tired, bitchy feeling woman who worked all day, that was the last thing I wanted to hear. From the way we three stared at each other when we heard the crying, we were all in agreement on one thing....GIVE THE CHILD BENADRYL, or give us alcohol! lol

The flight was fairly short, just a little over four hours, so that means I didn't really sleep much, as if I expected any differently. Not too much turbulence, but that doesn't bother me anyway. So, here I was in Florida finally with a total of five hours of sleep from the night before and the night before that combined. It's 5:15 a.m. and I'm wide awake. Hmm...go figure. I grab my bags and step out into the thick east coast air. Ah, yes...it feels like home.

The drive to Haddon Hall, in the center of South Beach, was uneventful and took about 40 minutes, which wasn't too bad. I got to the hotel at just before 7 a.m. and head to my friends room (120). Why you wonder do I not check in to my own room? Well, they wouldn't let me check in until 3 p.m. So, I chilled in there room. It was sooo good to see Danait (Dani)! We hugged and laughed and we couldn't believe we were in MIAMI!! We talked for about 45 minutes while Betty snoozed away. Finally sleep came over the both of us and we figured we should get a little sleep before hitting the town later on in the day. So (funny visual coming) we both crawled into bed. There was only one queen sized bed in this room and there were THREE women in it! I'm so glad I'm small. Dani and I talked and giggled for a few minutes more and we totally knocked out. When we finally woke up, it was 11:30, which presented another little problem...three women and ONE bathroom!! Yeah...we didn't get out of the hotel until close to 1:00. Oh...but it was so worth it!!