Mrs. H. Takes Miami

Every year the cold Philly winters leave us sick and depressed so we always wish for a trip to somewhere warm. This year I made the trip happen by booking Andrew a surprise trip to Miami for his birthday. I used points to book us three nights at the W South Beach,  booked Andrew's flight from Philly with points and I was able flex from Charlotte. Gotta love the perks of consulting! We got in around 9:00pm on Thursday night and, for simplicity's sake, went to the hotel restaurant, The Dutch.

The food was expensive but amazing, so we decided to call it a night. We were upgraded to a 1200 sq ft ocean view suite that was absolutely wonderful so it was easy to settle in for the night in the beautiful mini apartment.

Bedroom with a view

We woke up early Friday morning feeling well rested and ready to explore Miami. Several of my friends recommended breakfast at the Big Pink so we decided to walk the two miles down Collins Ave to get ourselves familiar with the area. 

Beautiful morning at the W pool!

The news was abuzz with Justin Bieber rumors and his very bad decision to drunkenly drag race cars through the Miami streets on Wednesday night. As we were walking we came across a big group of paparazzi and news crews, which we of course stopped to talk to. 

Bummer, Justin.

It turned out that Justin had rented out the entire hotel so the crews were waiting for him to emerge. We hung out for a bit but decided we were too hungry for the nonsense and continued on our way. I was more bummed that we didn't see my girls, the Kardashians, when we stopped at Dash.

Cute little store

 The Big Pink was definitely worth the walk. The menu was huge and the prices were super reasonable. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day so I was super excited.

We grabbed a table in the sun and I ordered a cup of coffee which was served in a huge mug (also one of my favorite things). We had a delicious egg breakfast for $25, another Miami recommendation.

After breakfast we headed to Lincoln Road to do a little shopping. It was colder (and by cold I mean "only" 70) than we expected so I had to buy a little blazer to wear over the very little dress I was planning to wear that night. I also bought this amazing neon Miami Beach sweatshirt, which I ended up wearing all weekend.

Working it.

We were both pleasantly surprised at how nice everyone was to us. We stopped in Tesla and ended up talking to the sales guy, who told us about the best clubs to go to in Miami. We like to have fun but some of these clubs sounded insane! One club, Space, got started around 5am and you could party all day if you really wanted to! Maybe next time, Miami! We ended the day on the beach and then the pool, which was just heavenly.

 

I am so thankful for all the recommendations we were given since Miami has so many options. Friday night we were told to head to Doraku for sushi after drinks at Juvia. The rooftop bar at Juvia was fantastic, I would definitely recommend going.

Little model.

We were sitting at the bar grabbing a drink at Juvia when a group of guys in their mid-forties sat next to us and ordered shots. We started talking to them and quickly found out they were great guys in town for their annual boys' trip. The one guy's dad played in the Super Bowl and he let us wear his Super Bowl ring. They invited us to eat dinner with them, paying for our whole night.

After dinner they invited us to head to Story with them, where they had a $3000 table and bottle service for the night. It was insane. I called it a night around 2:30 when I had to drag Andrew off the dance floor.

It was a crazy evening.

The next day was painful. We met the guys (who were also staying at our hotel) for a ridiculously expensive breakfast by the pool. If we were in better shape, I would have never spent that kind of money of breakfast, but c'est la vie.

Morning by the pool

It was a very lazy day on the beach, only making a trip to Sbarro for some recovery pizza. We were moving slow. The guys then texted us around 3pm for margaritas by the pool, so we joined them for some very epic people watching. 

Cheap lunch to make up for the crazy breakfast

After grabbing drinks at the W bar, we headed upstairs only to fall asleep around 7pm. Poor Andrew got food poisoning and was in the bathroom all night, which I slept through and didn't come out of my coma until around 8am. Sunday was a beautiful morning and we felt great from our early night in bed, so we headed to the beach for our final few hours of sunshine.

Laying on the beach

All in all, it was a great trip! I have been having a really hard time with work and growing up in general, so it was a much needed trip. We will definitely make a trip back, as we only did a fraction of what we were recommended to do. 

Back to the cold weather :(

Bye bye Miami

Finally Making Moves

I am leading an Accenture Retail group based out of New York City so this weekend I had a long weekend in Philly (a whole four days!!) due to an event in NYC Wednesday night. It was totally worth getting home a night early but definitely exhausting - I was in Charlotte Monday and Tuesday, then flew to New York early Wednesday morning. 

Love you New York!

I woke up in my own bed Thursday morning to the sounds of jack hammers at the back of the house. The demolition of the two houses behind us is happening even faster than we expected! Andrew even wrote to Naked Philly about it and they did a big write up on the projects planned for the two lots.

Very cool!

We are finally making moves with the trim and quarter round! The trick is to invite friends over for dinner to give us motivation :) We bought all our final quarter round and set it up in the basement to paint and prep to put up next week. The second floor is nearly done, the pictures are just super boring!

But this, this is an exciting picture

Dinner with our friends Lauren and Spenser and their 3 month old baby, Aris, was long over due and so fun! I am really trying to learn how to cook so I went on Pinterest and found some good recipes: yummy corn dip for an appetizer, butternut squash risotto and parmesan chicken for our main meal.

The dinner was a success! I am so happy for this great little couple and can't wait until we have our own little baby Haughton running around the house (not any time soon!). We did realize after having a baby in the house that we still have so much to do before we are really ready to settle.

Such a little sweetie! And so big!

This week we got tickets to the Philadelphia Home Show in the mail and we thought it would be great opportunity to find someone to do our banisters. We were so excited to discover BenFab, a custom banister company only about 20 minutes from our house.

Yay!!! Finally!

They had some really great floor examples and even a better portfolio of jobs they have done in the past. We will have an opportunity to customize anything we want, which will hopefully allow us to control the cost.

All metal option

Apparently the cable wire is more expensive (obviously) than the all metal option but it is the look we really like. 

This is the look we love

Oh well! We are having the team over to take measurements and give us some options this week. Andrew has been doing a ton of research so I know he will make sure we get exactly what we want while I am in Charlotte!

The banister master

We considered the Home Show a success and are so looking forward to all the projects we have planned over the next couple of months! 

Old people show.

Over Christmas we visited Pottery Barn because we were reconsidering getting the couch and chaise. I always love a trip to Pottery Barn and Andrew was super pumped that we were looking for a new, big couch again.

We really love the PB Comfort couches and it's a great time to buy - there is a big 20% off sale! We also had a 15% off coupon for moving into our new house and they allowed us to use that discount as well. We went home and measured out the living room with blue paint tape to see if we could make it work.

\

We decided it will be a great addition to the living room and something we desperately need! I am just praying that when it gets to our house it won't feel too big in the room.

New couch outline!

                               

The couch will arrive in early March and the banisters around the same time frame, two expensive purchases. Since we have such a crazy summer already lined up, the kitchen renovation may be pushed back until end of August :( I think it will really give us an opportunity to figure out what we want before we make such a big purchase.

Not Quite Back to the Grind

Happy 2014! After a two week break from house work, we are really struggling getting back into it! We have friends coming the first weekend of February, which definitely gives us motivation, but we are slow to get started on another project. 

Our biggest projects are finishing the trim and quarter round on all floors and finding banister and hand rails for both the second and third floors.

The third floor is a little precarious!

I have done a lot of research on Pinterest of banisters so we know what we want (a very modern, sleek medal) but we are having trouble finding it. Both Home Depot and Lowe's looked like they had a few options we might like so we decided to start there.

Before heading to Home Depot, we stopped at the Pennsy Flea Market, which we have seen advertised around our neighborhood every week. 

Fancy Advertising

In one word, the flea market was scary. We found where stolen items from our neighborhood are sold on the weekends! I avoided eye contact while Andrew sifted through the weirdest piles of junk I have witnessed in awhile.

Our big adventure out of the house was off to a rough start so it was time to head to Home Depot to check out banisters! So disappointing! There was only two options and they were both super lame, so we lost hope in checking that off the list this week. We bought caulking and wood filler for the trim and headed home to snoop around some of our neighborhood projects we have been reading about on Naked Philly!

Being demolished this week!

The weekend Andrew first looked at our house, he was accidentally shown the house across the street. It was much cheaper than our house but it needed a ridiculous amount of work so we didn't even take it into consideration. Last week, a "Notice of Demolition," sign was posted on the front window. We are super pumped to watch the whole demolition process, especially since the house is sandwiched between two other houses.

Can't wait to see what moves in!

We are just so happy that more improvements are coming to our little 18th street! One block behind us on Carpenter Street are a few very scary crack houses. They have had notices on them for awhile but this weekend we finally saw some movement!

 

The houses are now up for demolition and two brand new houses are planned to go in their place! Again, such fantastic news for our little neighborhood :) After exploring a bit, we headed home and finally got started on the quarter round! I even learned how to caulk!

Little caulker

It is amazing how tedious caulking is but it is a must for our uneven walls. We have a lot of weird spaces that needed to be filled in, along with nails that needed to be finished.

Not finished and looking rough

We finally got a lot accomplished and we are back on the roll! Now it is all about finding the balance and knowing that we don't need to be up ALL night doing caulking and it's totally fine to take a wine break!

Taking some time for us

We are at the very beginning of picking out our new kitchen and I am so excited for what is going to be a long and intense process. My sister and I met our parents at Ikea this morning, as they are at the very beginning of their own kitchen renovations. I have always been drawn to the gray cabinets in the middle (obviously) but after talking through kitchen choices with my parents today, I am changing my tune. I feel like gray is very "in" right now and I don't want to make that decision and hate it in 10 years. I am now leaning towards the white cabinet to the right instead.

So many cabinets to choose from!

This weekend was the first of many trips to Ikea, so I am really looking forward to finalizing our plans! Our little house is really going to transform with a beautiful new kitchen :)