Thanksgiving - Miami 2010

My first Thanksgiving with the family since 2007.  Thanksgiving 2008 was in Libya at our Guest House, yours turly was cooking for 50 or so employees.  Thanksgiving 2009 was with Tracy in Vienna, a local brew pub (the 1516) was offering a traditional Thanksgiving.  It was very good.

I took Monday off from work thou I was leaving Tuesday.  The flight from PHL left before 8AM on the 23rd. (I had to get to the airport by 6AM).  I arrive in MIA at around 11AM.  The rental car center is located off of the airport so I had to take a shuttle.  When I arrived at the Avis desk my name was not on the marque.  I went up to the counter and they could not find my reservation.  It was not in the system, and I had to pay a much higher rate than normal.  That sucked!  Later this day I search for my reservation and could not find it, I must have forgotten to do it.

I arrived at the Urbano hotel just before lunch time.  A nice hotel just before the toll gates going into the causeway to Key Biscayne.  Aunt Karen found this hotel for me.  Great location but in hindsight I should have stayed at the Crown Plaza.  I was the first to arrive, Mom and Dad were still on the road, Uncle Bill is flying into Ft. Lauderdale and Aunt Karen is golfing.  I went to the lobby bar and ordered some wine and a appetizer. I called Mom they were getting close, they had a hard time finding my hotel so they just drove to Aunt Karen's.  I arrived shortly after.  We had dinner at the Yacht Club.

Wednesday, I located a DD about 3 miles from the hotel. I'll be coming down here every morning, that's a fact. In the afternoon we started prepping food for tomorrows feast. I made a wine based sauce for the steaks tonight.

Thursday, I receive a Happy Birthday email from Tracy this morning. We met up at Aunt Karen's around 10ish. She had been working in the kitchen on the meal. We ---more to come---

Tracy texted saying that it was snowing in Philly, that's way too early for snow. I checked my Facebook and received Happy Birthday wish from my FB friends. In the afternoon I went to print out my boarding pass when I noticed I had a seat upgrade to first class, very cool! 
We had Thanksgiving dinner in the backyard, which was very nice. 

Friday the 26th, last day in Miami.  For lunch we went back to the Yacht Club then walked around the property taking pictures. We then drove down to the end of the causeway so we could take pictures of the group with Miami in the background.  Bill and Maria are heading to Key West for the remainder of the weekend.  Mom and Dad are driving back up this afternoon and my plane leaves around 4PM. I dropped off the rental car and hopped on the shuttle back to the airport. I flew back to Philly.  The flight took off around 4PM and landed about 7PM.