Lauren's Visit

These first 2 pictures are from Lisa's birthday party. We all went to dinner at Por Fin, which is just 2 blocks from our apartment. Lisa was really surprised and we had a lot of fun visiting with everybody.

Dr. Lauren Wilburn, DDS came to visit us! Unfortunately, rainy season started the week she came. I love this first picture of her! We would wake up in the mornings and if it was pretty we would hurry down to the pool. A little thunderstorm would come through so we would take cover and then go back out to the pool after it passed. We definitely shopped and ate a lot while she was here! We went to Merrick Park and found dresses for her graduation and graduation party. One day, in between the rain showers, we went to Bayside to ride Thriller. This is the little yellow boat that I rode with my mom . It goes really fast and takes you to see celebrity homes. Well, this boat trip was very different from my first experience. I warned Lauren that sometimes the boat would turn while going really fast and it would feel like we were on a wave runner that was spinning out. We both grew up spending a lot of time on the lake/river, so we're not normally nervous on boats. WELL, after the tour was over the guy driving the boat turns towards South Beach, rather than turning to take us back to the mall. This guy is going super-duper fast and he just kept gaining speed. Lauren and I both had white knuckles as we gripped the handle bar for dear life. I was attempting to get my foot in the life jacket under the seat in front of me just in case I went flying out. You know how when you're in a boat going fast and you kind of hit hard and it makes a thud noise? We made that noise about 10-15 times and didn't even slow down! The water was rough from the storms earlier that day but we just charged right into the big waves. I was honestly pretty scared! The guy driving would turn around and yell "Faster?!" and some people would let out a "wa-hoo". I usually sit quietly when those questions are asked but this time I was yelling as loud as I could (which didn't sound loud considering we were traveling faster than the speed of sound) "NOOOO!!" I couldn't wait to get out of that boat! Anyway, it was definitely an adventure!

"I'm sorry, I didn't know this was going to be happening today! And now my hands are paralyzed from holding on so tight!" (Don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, it's the SNL surprise lady.)

Everyone in the boat was wet from being splashed so much.

No idea what we were getting ourselves into...

Dropping Lauren off at the airport and picking up Andrea. Andrea's visit will be the next post!

Some of the houses we saw on our thriller tour: This is Will Smith's.

Inventor of Viagra lives here. He had the palm trees imported from South Africa for $9,000 per tree. And he has 40 of them! His wife is a public school teacher, which is pretty neat because she definitely doesn't need the money!

Sylvestor Stalone's

Shaq's (although it belongs to his ex-wife now)

Scarface house! Final shoot-out occurred on that top balcony.

The yellowish house is Rosie O'Donnell's

Ricky Martin's

You can rent this house on Star Island for $12,000 per night, with a minimum 5 night stay. So if any of you decide to do this, I expect an invitation.

This was Madonna's before she got kicked off Star Island for partying too much. Gloria Estefan (her neighbor) complained and got her outta there.

Elizabeth Taylor's house. The bunny statue was a gift from her friends as a symbol of how she likes to "jump" from man to man.

Vacant lot on Star Island that Brad Pitt just purchased for $6 million.

I can't remember, but I think this is the house from the movie Bad Boys.

House from The Adams Family movie.