Never a dull second

The past 2.5 weeks have been cram-packed with tons of fun and plenty of stress mixed in. Basically, we agreed to move apartments. Nathan & Kristen arrived Saturday, March 14th. Before we went to Ft. Lauderdale to pick them up from the airport, Ryan spent almost 3 hours steam cleaning the carpet in our new apartment. Since the electricity was not on in the new apartment, he had to do it with the sunlight through the windows, and since the steam cleaner requires hot water, he had to carry the big bucket up to our old apartment everytime he needed to fill it up. What a big job that he did not have time for! He did a wonderful job and the carpet looks 100% better now. We were so excited for Nathan & Kristen to visit! After they got here Saturday we took them to the restaurant that is attached to our apartment building (which is one of our favorite restaurants), Tarpon Bend. That night we went to the World Baseball Classic and Puerto Rico absolutely killed USA! The USA team got 10-run-ruled!!! It was still a lot of fun, though! The Puerto Rico fans were awesome...seriously, the happiest people ever. They were partying and cheering like nothing I had ever witnessed in my many, many baseball game attendances. When USA did something good, they cheered. When Puerto Rico did something good, they went bananas. There were a bunch of little bands playing Spanish music and everybody was dancing. At the beginning of the game they sang the Puerto Rican national anthem and they all sung along with their hands over their hearts. Afterwards we sang our National Anthem and they all sung along to that too...with their hands over their hearts. Speaking of that, I may offend some people here, but I'm simply stating the facts. I hate it when people do not put their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem. When we went to the Miami Heat game only 1 player (out of the 2 teams, players, coaches, etc) on the court put his hand over his heart. Every single player on the baseball field (on both teams) had their hands over their hearts. Draw your own conclusions, but I think that (overall) professional baseball players act much classier than professional basketball players. Sunday morning I cooked breakfast and we all headed to church. After church we took Nathan and Kristen to South Beach. I don't think it was what they expected! South Beach is so famous that I think people imagine it to be a glamorous place. Not at all! I actually hate South Beach and would much prefer to be on the beach at Ft. Walton. There are waaay too many people. We had to drive around about 30 minutes just to find a parking spot and then we had to pay $20 to park and walk to the beach. It was spring break, which meant even more crowded beaches. Some girls are topless, some are wearing string/thong bikinis, tons of people are smoking and playing their music too loud. It's anything but relaxing! But, it's part of the Miami experience. Next time we go to the beach, we are going to a resort beach...not the main beach strip. After we went to the beach we went to Brickell to the outdoor mall, Bayside. We shopped around and ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp restaurant. While N&K were here we had to be on the phone a lot, working out the details of our move. We had to talk to our current landlord, our realtor helping us with the new apartment, the apartment building property manager, all of our utility companies, etc. We had to meet with our old landlord to sign "release of contract" papers and meet with our realtor to sign our new lease. On top of all of that...we had to move while they were here! Ok, so on Monday we went to The Village at Merrick Park, which is a really nice outdoor mall that is really close to our apartment. We shopped around and ate lunch and then I cooked dinner for us Monday night (Ryan had to go to school during the day). After dinner Rabbi and Lisa stopped by to meet N&K. While they were visiting we decided it would be a great time to get a little help with the move. So, the 6 of us each grabbed as much as we could carry and loaded up in the elevator. While one of us held a flashlight (no electricity in the new apt) we moved in! I really wish I had pictures of this! It was hilarious, but I hope to never have to move like that again! There are 2 luggage carts in our apartment lobby, so we started loading them up as full as we could get them and just kept moving in. By the end of the night the only furniture left in our apartment was our coffee table, TV, and dresser. Ryan and I ended up sleeping on our mattress on the floor in the apartment with electricity for 2 nights and N&K slept on the air mattress. We were so grateful for their help! After we were finished moving (at least for the night) we all sat in the living room floor and ate snacks and played games on the coffee table. I have fun memories from that night. :) Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day. Ryan went to school and N&K and I went to the pool. We walked to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch and then just hung out the rest of the afternoon. A bunch of our Miami friends went to an Irish Pub a few blocks down for dinner. When we got to the restaurant there were about 150 in line waiting to get in and the fire marshal was counting. As 2 people left the restaurant, he let 2 new people in. Our friends were already there and had seats for us at the table, so we breezed by the line like we were VIPs. Dinner was a lot of fun and a guy from the New Times newspaper took our picture and we all had to sign photo release forms. I don't know if we were in the paper or not. After dinner Rabbi, Lisa, and Adam came over and the 7 of us played games and ate snacks again. Wednesday morning N&K and I went to breakfast at the Biltmore hotel and then it was time for me to take them to the airport. We had such a fun visit! When I got back to the apartment I started loading up every little thing from the old apartment with the goal of moving completely out that day. When Ryan got home we moved the bigger things and stayed in the new apartment that night. By the way, we have not been married 3 years yet, and this is our 6th "home". When I got up Thursday morning, I was totally exhausted, but I finished getting every last thing out of the old apartment and started unloading all the boxes in the new apartment. I cleaned all day long, and by "cleaned" I mean that I lysoled every single door knob, light switch, cabinet handle, etc. I scrubbed the bathtub, cloroxed the toilet, antibacterialized the kitchen, cleaned all the floors...I CLEANED. And then on Friday my mom got here! My dad went on a medical mission trip to Panama so she came to spend the week. (The trip went great and Dad is home, safe and sound.) On our way to the airport Friday night we came upon a bad wreck that had just happened. No emergency vehicles had arrived yet, so we pulled over and Ryan went to try to help. I stayed in the car and prayed and was afraid Ryan was going to see something horrible. One of the cars was upside down. Amazingly, everyone seemed ok! There were a lot of cuts and blood (Ryan did not touch any blood, but we decided we need to keep gloves in our cars for that purpose. We also need to keep the CPR protector pieces with us.). Ryan called 911 and we left because the scene was not "secure". The cars were not turned off, people were angry and seemed ready to fight with the person who caused the wreck, etc. I was really excited for my mom to get here! I can't even remember what we did everyday, but it involved a lot of shopping and eating! One day we took a boat ride on a really fast boat called Thriller and saw a lot of celebrity homes on Star Island. I put a picture of the boat below. The battery on my camera was dead, so I don't have pictures of the houses. :( The boat took us to Star Island and we saw a house that was $55 million that the man who created Viagra lives in. We also saw Ricky Martin's house, Rosie O'Donnell's house, Will Smith's, Elizabeth Taylor's, Sylvestor Stalone, Shaq's (his ex-wife lives there now and is trying to sell it for $37 million), the house that Bad Boys was filmed in, the house that Scarface was filmed in, the house Cocoon was filmed in, and the house that Guys & Dolls was filmed in. We also saw Madonna's house, but she got kicked off the island for too much partying. We saw Gloria Estafan's house...and several others. Then we saw Fisher Island (all by South Beach), which is a private island and you have to pay $200,000 per year just to be a member and be allowed to live there. Oprah, Tom Cruise, and Andre Aggasi (sp?) have places there. We also saw Tommy Hilfiger's big beautiful boat that costs $40 million! It was really fun to see all of these extraordinary things. And the boat went 55 mph between islands, so we were flying!!! When we got home we decided to walk around to find a new restaurant to try, and there just happened to be the Coral Gables Food & Wine festival going on one block over! All the restaurants (about 30) around set up tables and so my mom and I bought a ticket and were given a plate and got to walk around all night eating delicious food! SO fun!! And there were bands playing. There were a ton of local restaurants, but a few of the ones we ate at that you have heard of include Flemings and Mortons Steakhouse. There was one table that was making doughnuts (I think this was my mom's favorite). You got to put whatever topping on them you wanted. We had a great time! However, there were some stressful situations while my mom was here. I had to take my car to get worked on, which ended up costing about $300. Also, we had to make several trips to the post office because we have not received our mail since we moved and we are waiting to receive an important document, so this has caused high levels of stress. On top of that, we discovered that we need to get different car insurance for Ryan. My mom commented that while life seems to hand you one thing after another, it seems to hand us a lot of things in a pile, all at once. Oh well. We're pretty blessed, so I'll try to quit complaining now. :) My mom left Friday and yesterday (Saturday) Ryan had to do a physical exam. It was a big deal and each student had 45 minutes to do the entire exam on their PE partner (Adam). He had to cover about 200 points and get all of the techniques right. Ryan and Adam did a great job! So last night we went to dinner with Rabbi, Lisa, and Adam to celebrate the PE's being over and then we relaxed, just the 2 of us (for the first time in over 2 weeks). It was so nice for it just to be the two of us again. I mean, we love love love having company, but it's nice to get back to normal too. Ryan only has 1.5 weeks of school left! We're thinking of driving down to Key West after the semester ends. We're really starting to think about where we'll be living next. Our most likely choices are Atlanta, Chicago, and New York. I looked at the temperatures in these cities and right now (9PM):

Atlanta - 48

Chicago - 38

New York - 52

Miami - 79 - I want to stay here! I don't think that's an option, though.

Oh, and I'll be home in April because I'm running in the Country Music 1/2 Marathon with my dad! Let me be honest, I'll be walking a lot too, I am sure. I'm going to close this super-duper long post with a prayer request and a news article that I found through Ralna: Please pray for Ed & Cindee Richards. It is a very long story, but they need our prayers. They are the missionary couple on Dominica who started RCF, which was our biggest Dominican blessing. And here is the news article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,452186,00.html It's about being married to (or dating) a medical student.

Ryan & Nathan in the Atlantic.

People walking down the beach on stilts and playing instruments. Not sure what they were advertising.

A really bad hair day on South Beach.

Adam Dunn blowing a bubble.

A baby alligator. Don't know the people.

Forrest Gump.

I just thought of one more really quick story. This morning as Ryan was driving us to church I noticed a little spot on my black pants. So I grabbed a bottle of water that was left in my car and tried to pour a little bit on the spot. Well, I accidentally dumped about 1/4 of the bottle in my lap, which ran in between my legs and into my seat. So my pants were basically soaking wet when I walked into church. It was pretty funny. The good news is that it didn't show up too much since the pants were black, and after I sat in the pew the cushion soaked up most of the water.