New Year's Miami Style

As you may or may not have known, I spent the last week after Christmas soaking up the sun in Miami with my parents, brother and Eric. I was really looking forward to the vacation since December is a bit of a rough time in the world of teaching and I was fighting with a bad cough. Sadly, the vacation did not make it better (but Mucinex did!), but I did get in a lot of the relaxation I was craving so much.

Eric and I are usually big tourists when we travel, but most of this week was spent going for runs and walks, reading, eating amazing food and just enjoying the fact that Miami doesn't see the kind of winter that we do in Boston. We did enjoy a bit of what Miami has to offer though including seeing Million Dollar Quartet, which was really good! We also went on a fantastic sightseeing boat ride around Miami that helped us get a sense of where everything was, and of course see the beautiful oceanfront mansions of many famous people!

The views of the city of Miami from the boat were also beautiful.

Cities on the ocean will always have my heart. The best way to see them is from a boat.

Spending New Year's Eve in Miami was also wonderful. I mean, it's hard to beat eating outside and hanging out outside on December 31st when you are used to snowy cold. We started off our night by heading over to Smith and Wolensky for a drink at their waterfront bar. It's the perfect place to watch the sunset.

Every New Years South Beach closes down Ocean Blvd. and the restaurants put their tables outside on the street. My family and I walked down the street and found a nice Italian restaurant to eat at. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel. We figured my parents balcony would be the best place to see the fireworks and we were definitely right! There was also a beach club next door to us that was celebrating the new year and they even had their own ball to drop. In college, one of my friends went to MIT and we used to watch the New Years and 4th of July fireworks in Boston from the roof of his dorm. This was great because you could have your own party, see the fireworks and not deal with the crowds. This was just like this except much closer, and gorgeous weather. Basically heaven.

While we waited for it to be midnight we decided to play Catch Phrase. If you don't know this game you really should, it's the best. We didn't have the real game with us, but we found a website to generate words for us and passed around Eric's phone. At midnight we had the best view of fireworks I have probably ever had...

I also really enjoyed having a camera that can actually capture fireworks. I only wished that Caroline was there! :)

Yesterday we headed home and now I've got a mess of a house (that's what happens when you have people over for Christmas and then leave the next day) and a long, long to do list before it's back to work tomorrow.

How did you spend your New Year's? Do you prefer to do something big or have a more low key night?