Fruit and Spice

Today my mom finally flew into town for a visit.  Finally!  So after I picked her up we went to the Fruit and Spice Park all the way down in Homestead about as far south west as you can go in Miami.  What a beautiful afternoon we had.  We walked around a little bit on our own and then we hopped on this trolley for a tour and our tour guide was fantastic.  She was constantly stopping and picking fresh fruit for us to taste.  Some fruit I've never even heard of from all different parts of the world.  Rio was absolutely loving it, she was devouring everything we gave her.  She was in heaven, one thing my little girl loves is her fruit.  My mom was loving it too because when she moves back down here she's planning on adding fruit trees to the back yard.  There's this one tree I love from Brazil, the berries actually grow on the bark of the tree.  It looks amazing and the berry is so sweet and turns a bit sour towards the center. 

I love days like this when I feel like I've really learned something about the world while spending time with the people I love.

The House

Last year my husband and I, with our newborn baby, drove around for months in our neighborhood looking at the houses for sale and wishing we could find the perfect one.  We looked at this one house about four blocks from us that was in foreclosure.  It has over 2000 square feet and it looked like it needed a little TLC.  When we finally saw the inside of it, oh my god, my jaw dropped to the floor.  It looked like the inside of a fetish club.  The walls were all painted black and there were no doors anywhere, to the rooms or bathrooms.  The kitchen was like the kitchen to a restaurant and the master bedroom was on the second floor with these very narrow steep stairs you had to climb up... I was such a baby when I had to climb down, I thought I was going to fall off because there was no railing.  

Thank god we found our house.  

So Rio and I were walking around our neighborhood today and there it was.  The house.  Somebody bought it but it still looks like a wreck and on top of that the house next to it and the house across the street are empty.  The whole street is overgrown with palm leaves and branches covering the sidewalk and street... but it looks eerily beautiful.  

Poor house, I hope whoever bought it puts some love into it.

Coral Gables

So this weekend my husband, daughter and I went driving around Coral Gables.  It is such a gorgeous city known for it's trees that line the street and create a canopy that covers everything.  We were driving during magic hour so the sun light was a golden color (my favorite time of day!) and every few minutes I would say "Pull over, pull over!"  and jump out of the car and take all these photographs trying the capture "the moment".  We drove around until the sun was almost gone and then went to our favorite Indian Restaurant for some dinner... heaven.