After surviving last weekend’s drop of over a foot of snow, it’s imperative for me to recap my warm, sunny trip to Miami. This trip brought a lot of work, a lot of family and and a lot of good food. The pictures can *mostly* tell it all.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that this building is this gorgeous. Many a productive meeting within these walls over the week I was there. New faces and old friends, new plans, new 16-17 season…#new.

But something that is neither new, nor never gets old is this rooftop view. This was the start of a glorious sunset.

My trip overlapped a visit my mother-in-law and brother-in-law made to Miami, so we were able to meet up for dinner and a movie in the park outside my building. Turns out, The Boy Friend is weird, so we didn’t last long.

The next day, my mom and Mike arrived for the weekend, which started with one of our PULSE concerts–a late-night, club-style event for orchestra and DJ.

It was a “white out” version, which means we were decked in our winter summer whites and wore these LED color-changing bracelets to be part of the show.

Here are a few glimpses of what PULSE is like…

I love my job.

Saturday was a nice day off with brunch at Big Pink (always, forever, amen) and time on the beach.

I have to give a big shout-out to these massive iguanas that were all over this tree on my walk to work. It was crawling with them. (Sorry, horrible.) At first I noticed one that was licking water off of a leaf when it was pouring rain. But then every time I walked by, there were more and more and more. So awesome.

At times you’d only see their scaly backs…

…and other times you’d only see them peeking through the leaves. So entertaining.

The highlight of my week was definitely our day trip to Sanibel to see Bobbie and her family. It’s a convenient halfway point between Miami and Tampa and a familiar haunt for me and Bobster. I hadn’t seen Abby (other than on Skype) since she was one-and-a-half, so this was a big moment. Clearly, she was thrilled to see me.

Just kidding, she really was thrilled, but probably not as much as I was to see her.

She even took a few pictures of her own with my camera.

Her parents are much more photogenic!

Our attempts at getting a girls’ photo were hilarious, albeit a little unsuccessful thanks to someone’s constant wiggles!

Baby’s First Game of Cornhole. That’s a baby book milestone, right?

We walked off our big lunches at a nature trail and center. Baby’s First Binoculars.

I love this picture. Lots of good conversation going on about ballet, friends, school…

More adventures at the nature center building birds…

…and listening for the ocean.

It was a big day for her…and Mike.

Overall, the most perfect day and trip.

“Everyone, hold hands!”

One more “swing me!”

Until next time, Florida!