Carrie – Page 57 – thosecoolkims

Day One, part I

It’s tough to try and explain Miami, so we’ll just save that for another entry! All we know is we definitely haven’t ever experienced a city like this before! Everything here is beautiful – whether it’s a poolside view, a person serving you a drink, or a building in general, it’s got style. We are very impressed.

On Day One, we are holding fast to our goal, and that is chillin’. At a place like The Standard, they make it pretty easy! There are places to chill all over the place! We liked the little wicker beds you could lie out on in the green grass:

And the hanging chairs you can relax in:

But our favorite part was just being out at the most gorgeous pool we’ve ever seen!

The pool is awesome! When you look out on it, the line between where the pool stops and the bay begins is nearly impossible to discern. And, you look up above you and there are the hugest clouds all around you, just like this:

It truly is an adult playground.

Of course, this wonderful setting called for a cocktail! We headed on over to the cafe and took a seat bayside to enjoy more of the view:

Pink Chairs!

After the cocktails, we snuck in a little more time by the pool:

And tried to be as cool as everyone else in Miami:

Now we have to go get pretty for a very swanky Dinner at Blue Door – more later on that one for sure!

We made it!

We have finally arrived at The Standard Miami, and we’re in the process of just trying to keep our mouths from gaping wide open. This place is so cool and it’s gonna be an awesome week! A few mishaps along the way – Carrie barfed all over the Enterprise Rental Car shuttle thanks to some bad guacamole and tacos. Everyone was really nice about it, but Carrie is still feeling a little queasy. Nothing a soak in the pool can’t cure, we suppose.

Also, being the sweet husband that Ed is, he arranged to have red roses and champagne in our room when we arrived! He thinks of everything!

Now we’re in our suits and lookin’ to explore. Much more to come!!!

Poor Kitty

Our pretty kitty Ricki had to have surgery on Monday – she tore the ligament in her left knee (yes, cats have knees!) and had to have a pretty heavy-duty operation. She made it through the surgery just fine, and now the toughest part is the recovery. She’s doing a million times better than the day before, but – that darn cone around her head! Besides making her look so sad, it also gets in the way. :( Cool pink cast though, huh?

For those of you that may not know, she tore the ligament in her right knee last October, just two days after Ed & I got home from our honeymoon. The crazy thing is, she has the exact same injury – but in THE OTHER LEG!!! The best vet in the world, Dr. Toledo, says he’s NEVER seen this happen to a cat in the whole time he’s been practicing veterinary medicine. What are the chances??? Dr. Toledo says it’s a very rare injury for a cat to get, this kind of thing usually only happens to dogs.

We have no idea how she did it (either time) – and her doctor says that an injury like that does not happen from impact, more from quick movements. If we had to guess, she probably did it while racing upstairs to her favorite destination: the food & water bowls. We’re just happy that she’s on her way to recovery.

Get well soon, Ricki!

Facey Kids, part one

This weekend we finally got to have the Facey kids over to stay with us. We have been looking forward to having them come over for such a long time, so we made a lot of plans for an action packed weekend! Since having four at a time is a little frantic for us (we’re kid rookies), the plan was to keep two with us, while the other two were at Grandma & Grandpa’s. Then, we’d swap with them the next day and have the other two over. Today was Kendall and Jordan day, ages 9 and 7. They are really fun girls and we had a blast getting to spend some quality time with them!

We began the day at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana. That place was a blast. They had all kinds of fun things for Kendall & Jordan to do – like climbing the rock wall to the Pirate Adventure where they searched the place for clues to solve the puzzle. A few highlights:

Climbing the rock wall

Jordan is pulling herself up on a rope in a chair.

Uncle Ed does the same.

Kendall is learning about erosion – who knew that was so fun?

Uncle Ed is helping the girls push a cloud out of the hole.

Kendall took this one!

The popular favorite – a Pirate exhibit!

Panning for gold.

Auntie Carrie hanging out in the “pet section” of the Kid Supermarket.

After the Discovery Center, we all agreed it was Pizza Time! We indulged in some delicious pizza and then headed on to the next adventure – Color Me Mine in Downtown Brea where we could make some art!

Kendall decided she wanted to paint a small box with a cat on top…

Jordan opted for the same, but with a dog…

Auntie Carrie & Uncle Ed decided to work on a set of food and water bowls for the kitties.

Besides being a lot of fun, we were also glad to have an air-conditioned place to hang out in for awhile – it was 105 degrees today!

Kendall & Jordan surprised us with their attention to detail and committment to their projects! We were very proud of them. The final results…

A polka dotted cat and an adorable golden retriever puppy! Way to go girls! As for C+E, here’s the kitty bowls:

After wrapping up, we came straight home so we could jump in the pool and cool off! Auntie Carrie helped the girls with their swimming techniques, and Jordan swam the width of the pool with her face in the water and “big arms”!!! Kendall did a great job swimming as always and she was happy to show that she remembered all of her skills. Once we got out, Uncle Ed grilled some hot dogs and we got to teach them one of our favorite games, Guitar Hero. Yep – the girls know how to rock!

We’re exhausted! Stay tuned for tomorrow, when we swap kids with Grandma & Grandpa and have day two of adventures with Mikayla & Ethan!

Destination: Miami

We can hardly believe it, but our 1-year wedding anniversary is approaching! We’ve been long considering where we’ll go to celebrate. We’ve talked a lot about exploring the good ol’ USA a bit before we go international again. Afterall, Ed flies to Korea every month, so he’s over the plane rides. Carrie just started a new job in May, so she hasn’t got much vacation time. And we both agreed that there’s a lot of this country we haven’t seen yet. So, we’re tryin’ to hit up all the major U.S. cities (we consider ourselves city folk – sure, we like the outdoors and all, but after about 2 hours we start gettin’ fidgety). The quandary is that we both have pretty high-octane jobs these days, so we wanna be able to relax on our vacation too. So we came up with a different, yet interesting destination: Miami.

Miami is a pretty major U.S. city – it’s tropical, but it’s got city life to it as well. But the real clincher was that there is a Standard Hotel location there, and that pretty much sealed the deal. We can relax and chill in modernity during the day, and enjoy some delicious cuban food and mojitos at night. There’s a lot of mid-century modern architecture in Miami too…and even a modern museum. Sounds like just the right place for the two of us.

Back to The Standard though…this is what we have to look forward to:

Can you believe that pool? Yep, that would be the ocean right in front!

The rooms and restaurant don’t look so bad either!

Check it out! The Standard

We just booked our tickets this week, and we can’t wait! October can’t come soon enough. You better believe we’ll be journalling all along during our trip! Stay tuned…