So...Florida was pretty much amazing!

We arrived On Wednesday at 11-ish (pm). Laura came in from Seattle to meet me for my birthday! What a great gal!!! :) Anyhow our flights arrived within 10 minutes of each other, and we rented a car and head off to the hotel--which had a balcony and an amazing inner-coastal view!!. We figured that by the time we got to the hotel, we could quick primp and change out of airplane clothes, and head out for one drink. By the time we would get to the bar it would technically be my birthday so it would be a birthday drink and hang out a little, then off to bed. Well when we got to the bar, we discovered that they were open until 5 am! How frickin ridiculous is that!?!?! Who stays out drinking until 5 am? Not us don't worry... we left at 3:30 :)

Anyhow we were both still set on schedules... Laura's being West Coast time, and mine being to wake up and be to work at 7:30 every morning...So we woke up at 8. 4 hours of sleep...... that equals to cranky ladies!! Watch out..
We got ready to head out and went straight to the beach (after getting our morning coffee of course!). It was wonderful! The weather was in the 80's and the water temp was 70-75 somewhere, not to mention that the sand was the softest sand I have ever felt in my life... it felt like chinchilla fir! It was white and glorious, and the water was that turquoise-y blue.. which I wasn't expecting. But it was beyond gorgeous! So it was quite the relaxing morning... filled with all kinds of birthday love! if you haven't gotten the memo... it was my birthday and I love, love, love my birthday :D
Anyhow after enjoying the rays, we went off for lunch and to get ready to meet my grandpa and uncle for dinner. (oh and these are the dad's side relatives... not the grandpa that I used to go golfing with back home). For dinner we went to this place called the Okeechobe Steak House...... such a fun name to say Oh-key-cho-bee. Anyhow it was excellent food! In fact the food was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip! I had steak and lobster... mmmmm..
After dinner we went into the down-town area of West Palm Beach, where all of the quaint shops and restaurants are. We each had one martini at this place called the Blue martini, before heading home.... back in Boca Raton, we were going to try to find another place to go out to, but decided that after 4 hours of sleep we were both to cranky and tired to deal with it so we went home early (around midnight). Definitely up there on the list of great birthdays.. My golden birthday was pretty sweet too... :)

Friday we slept in so we were all caught up in that department, and we needed to catch up in the becoming tan department! We are soooo white!!! So off to the beach we went again.. and again we only stopped first to get our java! It was a very windy day, but it was perfect because the wind would blow the heat around, and so you felt just right! The water was a little more wild, so we didn't stay in it for long... also we noticed the dangerous aquatic life flag that was flying... later to lear that it was due to Jelly Fish and Man-O-Wars. Other beach-life included, the strangely well-behaved seagulls and the ridiculously orange leather people. Today we left the beach only to get subs and beverages and then to return to camp out some more.
When we actually came in, we decided we needed to find the local shopping.... we love to shop! (its sort of a problem... we've even developed a way to shop together cross country--picture messaging is a wonderful thing!) Surprisingly enough neither of us bought much. I bought some new flip flops b/c mine broke on the walk from the beach, and then we each got some cute clearance sweaters at AE. We had dinner at a place called McCormick & Schmicks..... it was sooo incredibly amazing, Oh yea....
I had the Atlantic Salmon, stuffed with Crab, Shrimp and Brie, and Laur had the swordfish with lumps of dungenous Crab on top. Again just an amazing meal.


Saturday we went out to spend the day with the family again. My uncle builds houses in West Palm. They range in selling price between 4-19 million dollars when they are done! Yowzahs! These were some pretty crazy mansions. This is just the maids suite at one of the houses. We were able to see 3 different houses. They were awesome.... Stuff like this really fascinates me too...I love to see different architecture of houses, ant then all of the details that go into them, and it is just obscene the extremities that these people go to. I'm talking, each bedroom had a full bathroom, a walk in closet, and a balcony! It was nuts! And I loved it! Then we went out to lunch with the relatives, and then back to Boca to get ready for our last night out.
We decided to go to this italian restaurant that night for dinner, and boy am I telling you, we found the most wonderful restaurants to dine at! They were all just scrumptious. And it was a really fun atmosphere, so we decided to go home and change into our night clothes... gotta be dressed up for the last night out, and then we returned to the same restaurant for drinks. It was fun... and within walking distance of our hotel.. even better!

Sunday, we woke up early and ordered room service. Then packed and loaded into the rental.... and of course we used our last hour of time to go to the beach one last time. Do you blame us.. it was such a fun time! And then it was back to real life :(

A great way to start off 2008 and my 22nd year! hooray!