flashback friday...august 1995

the summer before my last year of college, dennis & i decided we were going to take a trip to miami beach to visit his sisters traci & rissa. traci worked at the national hotel located right on the beach & told us she could get us a great deal to stay there. we could hardly pass it up!

so we took off on our road trip. yep, we decided to drive from north dakota all the way to miami beach. since we had cracked this hair-brained scheme to drive, we decided that we'd better take advantage of it. if we were going to drive to florida, we might as well stop in del rio, texas, to visit dennis' dad & family. we were young, what can i say!
we drove the first day to el dorado, kansas, to stay with friends for a night. then it was off to texas. dennis' dad is a borderpatrolman in del rio, 3 LONG hours from san antonio, pretty much driving in barren land with buzzards. we were very nervous upon our arrival because it was the first time dennis & i were meeting his dad, stepmom, & 2 sisters, along with some cousins. but we got past that upon meeting them because they all welcomed us with open arms. we had so much fun with them. the pictures below are of dennis with sister stacy on the left & tara on the right, then dennis' dad kenneth, the bottom is of me with tara, stacy, & some of their cousins.

after a few days of fun in texas, it was off to see the cutie below: our niece nikiya. she still sports those adorable dimples!

below is the hotel "the national" that we were lucky enough to stay at. it was beautiful! the architecture was so different from anything i'd seen before ~ it was only familiar to me because of miami vice... :) the grounds of the hotel were gorgeous with all of the lush greenery.

while in miami beach, we of course took advantage of the beach, went dancing (it was the summer of the macarena), rissa took us on a tour of the delano hotel where she worked located next to the national, we ate yummy food (traci makes some great cuban food), took a day to tour the everglades, then took a few days to go to disney world & epcot.

rissa, dennis, & i went to orlando for a few days of F-U-N!! although there were a few down pours, we trekked on. we were completely exhausted by the end of the days because we had so much ground to cover in just 2 days. here dennis & i are modeling some nice head gear.

below is rissa with her lovely, disney purchase.

this was my first time at a hard rock cafe.

below are rissa, nikiya, & me getting on our boat to tour the everglades. there was an alligator farm where we saw a worker pretty much like steve irwin, excited about showing the tourists the alligators & wrestling them ~ crikey! dennis thought he should hold one.

the next group of pictures shows the view of the beach from our balcony. then dennis & i are in the ocean with nikiya ~ we were lucky enough to take her for her first time ever in the ocean, along with rissa. the bottom picture is typical of dennis with kids. he has a magic touch to get them to fall asleep.
so after a fantastic 8 or 9 days in miami beach, it was time to start driving back north. the crazy thing was that our trip wasn't over yet. my brother was spending the summer in bardstown, kentucky, performing in "the stephen foster story" & my parents & g'ma were there on their summer vacation. also, my aunt karen, uncle steve, & cousisns kean (yeah, the one that just graduated) & kadija drove over to kentucky from virginia. the picture below is self-explanatory.

this trip was so fun...except that dennis would tell you that was when he discovered that i was crabby when i was hungry, when i was tired, when i was cold, when i was hot...
guess it must have been true love because he married me despite all of that!

**sidenote: gas was generally around $1 on this trip...no wonder it was so affordable!