Miami!

We were invited to a wedding in Miami over spring break - hello kidless vacation! My parents took the girls to Corpus Christi - where it rained, the girls didn't nap yet stayed awake til midnight jabbering away in their cribs, and trucks zoomed around the beach - and my parents claimed it was a great time! (No one grandparents harder they than do: they drove to Seattle to drop a vehicle off with my sister, flew back to St Louis after 24 hours, my dad worked two ER shifts, they drove in one day to San Antonio, took two toddlers ('very active kids' in my dad's words - he's nice) to the beach for three days, then drove back to STL.) I got tired just writing that sentence. Thanks Grandma and Pop Pop! Here's the wonderful time we had while you were enduring psychological warfare at the beach with the Safety Sisters!

Their suits and hats are from Hanna Andersson

They left on Tuesday. That night Luke and I went to Hot Joy, a restaurant I've been hearing about for a while and the chef is receiving national attention (NYT magazine; I listened to the ATK podcast interview the day before). The next morning we caught the 6:30 flight to Miami.

We were there early and couldn't check into our Airbnb until 3. We caught a cab to South Beach but quickly realized dragging our luggage around wasn't fun. Luke had the brilliant idea of a bus tour so we hopped on one and jumped off in Little Havana.

Security camera, dumpster, illicit embrace of bougainvillea and pine tree.

Ball & Chain.

After we checked into our condo (I LOVE AIRBNB) we walked to the CocoWalk for dinner at Jaguar. I was so pleased with the neighborhood. I don't know anything about Miami but thought we lucked out with Coconut Grove - shops and restaurants just a 5-10 minute walk from our condo. For dinner I had a Peruvian dish that was basically a shallow bowl of tomato bisque with a clockface arrangement of rice, poached egg, fish filet, shrimp, and giant lima beans. So delicious!

Thursday. We had brunch at George's (the red chairs are kneeling women, ooo la la) and I made a hair appointment around the corner for a wedding 'do.

On the advice of our waiter, we Uber'ed it to the Biltmore to hang out before the wedding.

It was ok I guess.

Poolside mojitos.

Selfie to feature: my natural hair texture (I need chemicals, stat); trip VIAs (very important apparel: Panama hat from Target, huge sunnies, Land's End SPF shirt -- love these - I have three); glowy skin courtesy of Q's lasers.

I went to an Aveda salon for my appointment (please get my hair OFF MY FACE!) and she braided it and only charged me $15! In the heart of Miami!

Here we are at the most gorgeous wedding at the most gorgeous venue with the most gorgeous (and interesting and fun) people! We never take pics together so here are ALL OF THEM.

This dress is old and can be wadded up in a suitcase and emerges wrinkle-free for any occasion.

Vizcaya Gardens.

The program. I've never happy-cried in my life but this quote made me catch my breath. Yay America! Yay equality! Yay everybody minding their own damn business!

Blurry dancefloor pics, my specialty. Here are our new friends, Dallasites Sam and Alvian. HOLA LOVERS!

When you party so hard your glasses fog.

Grooms Hernan and Will. Will and I went to college together and have not seen each other since 2002 (thanks Facebook!) He told me this story: you may not remember this, Julie, but you took me to a book signing for Tales of a Female Nomad which I happened to read on my way to a medical school interview in Miami. It turned out my interviewer had lived in El Salvador, where part of the book is set, and I knew all about the history of the place and we mostly talked about that. And that's where I went to med school! 

Whoaaaa butterfly effect! Art is important! Reading is important!


We danced, we met cool new people, we celebrated love sweet love.

After we had too much fun at the wedding, we had to vacate the condo by 11 am but our flight wasn't until 8:30 pm. We had brunch and saw London Has Fallen aka London Has Fallen: Because It's Showing at 12:40. I give it 5 stars for topicality (particularly in light of the sad news from Belgium today) and negative 17 stars for its terrible dialogue and Gerard Butler's barely-masked burr (he plays an American Secret Service agent).

Loitering in a nearby state park...

I finished the first half of the first season of Outlander during the airport wait and flight home despite lugging several heavy books and journals "oh, to catch up on." I should know myself better by now.

That was our kidless vacation! We vowed to take more of these Wed-Fri trips, short, rejuvenating, and with the weekend to recover. You ready, Grandma and Pop Pop?!