Josh & Joni: Honeymoonin' Time

Josh and I decided to wait until Christmas break to go on our honeymoon so that way we wouldn't be missing school and we could just have a relaxing vacation.We went to Miami, Florida. For those of you that don't know me that well, I am ALWAYS cold no matter how many layers I wear so when I first found out his parents were sending us to Florida I was looking forward to getting some warm weather in January. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The week that we were in Miami it was oddly cold. Usually it's in the 70's during January but while we were there it barely reached 60!
We have this little thing in our family that whenever we used to go camping the weather would turn out bad because of my mom. Her name is Irene and so they would always say "I-Rain" is here and that is why the weather is bad. Well, I think my mom has passed her bad luck onto me. Within the past few years I can think of numerous times we went camping, to Bear Lake or on a trip and the weather was out of the ordinary. When I was 16 my mom, Charlie, and I went to Laguna Beach, California for spring break. The whole time we were there it was overcast. The sun didn't even peak around the clouds for a moment! Also, it seems like every time I would go over to Bear Lake for the weekend with my family last summer the weather would not be what I was expecting. It would be cloudy and windy with very little sun. I think with that said, you probably would be better off not inviting me to go on vacation with you!!
Even though the weather was crumby in Miami we still had a wonderful time! We were able to rent a car and drive to many different places. We arrived in Miami on Monday afternoon and after we got settled in out hotel room we went and ate at Benihana's. That was my first time going there and I absolutely loved it! The food was amazing, especially the ham fried rice. Josh had told them we were on our honeymoon and so they sang us a special song and gave us some yummy dessert.
On Tuesday, we decided to drive through the keys to Key West. As I got dressed that morning I knew it was supposed to be colder that day but figured I would be fine wearing shorts and sandals. When we went out to the parking lot to get into our car it was freezing (maybe a little exaggeration) so I ran back up to our room and changed into pants and boots. 3 hours later we arrived! It was really neat to drive through all of the Keys and cross the bridges that went from one key to the next. Key West was different from what I pictured. It has very narrow streets and old houses that were turned into shops, hotels, and businesses.There was surprisingly a lot of people there for a Tuesday afternoon! We waited in line to get a picture by the monument stating that we were 90 miles from Cuba. Josh also told me about the Mile 0 which I had never heard of before. For those of you that are from Utah... Key West is the town that is the farthest south on the map of the U.S. Unfortunately, we didn't ever find the Mile 0 sign to take a picture of. Then we walked down Duval Street and roamed the different shops on that street. That night we ate at Hard Rock Cafe and for dessert we ordered key lime pie since it is famous in the Keys.
On Wednesday, we went shopping at the Dolphin Mall (which was my choice)! This mall was huge! The mall was a mix of outlet and normal stores which was the perfect combination. It took us at least an hour just to make a full circle around the mall. After shopping we headed to the American Airlines Arena AKA home of the Miami Heat!! We had a lot of fun at the game. Luckily, Lebron was playing because Dwayne Wade was out for that game. It was neat to watch a team that is actually good because I've only been to Utah Jazz games ha! Josh especially loved it because he is the one that purchased the tickets at least a month before our honeymoon!
On Thursday the weather started to warm up so we drove to north beach and walked along the beach. The water was very clear and I felt like I was in the Caribbean. There were a lot of people laying out on the beach which we had planned to do but accidentally left our suits at the hotel. We turned our rental car in that afternoon so after that we went back to our hotel and just relaxed and watched TV. We flew back to Illinois Friday morning to spend one last day with Josh's family and to go to Colin's birthday party.