Let the good times roll

In what will probably be the first of many posts about Miami, I'll at least start with some of the highlights of a great weekend. Professional athletes, incredible meals, bountiful drinking, lots of sun...

Let me start with the players, to help with the stories. Photos are from our dinner at Nobu (yes, the restaurant LOVED it when we started taking flash photos in the middle of dinner)

There's me and Mike.

Bobby and Kristy (they live in Fort Worth) ...

Brian and Heather (they live in Nashville)...

And Robert and Kristin (they live in DC).

We landed Thursday night around 7 p.m., and met Bobby and Kristy for dinner. It's Kristy's 30th birthday, the reason for our trip. Glowing drinks...

and a good meal. Kristy walked out front towards the end of our meal and made friends. This is important because I need to lay the groundwork for how Kristy meets and makes friends everywhere. As she walks back towards our table, she's being accompanied by a gentleman in a suit, who stops, takes her hand, and kisses it.

Bobby's response? "Hm. She probably got something for us."

Indeed, the gentleman continued all the way to the table, and introduced himself as a hotel manager, and could he perhaps take us on a tour of the roof suites?

Kristy is very good at making very good friends.

This is the only photo of mine that came out from the roof. The building used to be owned by Tiffany's (yes, that Tiffany's).

So let's fast-forward to Friday night. (yes, I'm skipping the drinks at the Delano on Thursday night and the beach time Friday, but, well, that pretty much describes it. And no photos.).

We all geared up to dine at Nobu, one of our favorites. We arrived and had a drink at the bar while they were getting out table ready. I had this delic lychee martini. Mike's facing me, and his jaw drops. Not at my gorgeousness, but at the two professional hockey players that walk in behind us.

Mike Green and Nick Backstrom from the Washington Caps. They are with a third guy, who turns out to be Nick's brother. But we don't know this at first.

At first, Mike nearly pees his pants, then tries to stop me from approaching them. Now, in general, I don't like to approach people, even if they are famous. But there were a couple of additional considerations in this scenario.

First, we are now official season ticket holders to the Washington Caps.

And we were in Miami. Meaning, we weren't in their hometown. So they may not have expected to be recognized.

As they were waiting in line to check in with the hostess, I approached them. Excused myself and told we didn't want to bother them, but we did want to say that we were season ticket holders and it was great to see them.

They were extremely gracious and excited. Talked for a moment. Asked what we were doing down here, and we pointed to Kristy and said it was her birthday.

After they checked in with the hostess and also went to the bar to wait for their table, I decided to approach again and ask for a picture.

Which they loved. With the flash. Actually had us take three to make sure they came out. Here's one:

We thanked them and walked a few steps away. A few minutes later, they signaled over to us, and handed out a round of white wines to me, Mike, Kristy and her boyfriend. Extremely generous of them.

At that point, though, we were called to our table, so we literally just accepted the drinks and walked away.

A fantastic dinner ensued. Out of this world fantastic. This group loves food and is adventurous with it. So we told the waitress that we wanted two particular dishes on the menu, but that we wanted to spend $XX per person in food, and could she please bring us what she recommended.

Which, if you don't do that often, is a wonderful way to eat. I've done it now in Naples, at Oyamel in DC, at Nobu, and then the next night at an Italian restaurant (more on that later). We also drank and drank and drank over the course of our three hour meal.

Here's another photo from Nobu, and I think you can tell from both my and Heather's eye's what a good time we were having...

Towards the very end, Kristy left again to smoke. Heather joined her for company. They didn't return to the table by the time we settled up the tab, so we wondered out to the patio bar where we suspected they were.

And none of us were surprised at all to find Kristy and Heather sitting with the two Caps players, the brother, and another guy who may or may not have been a player.

I sat down with that group, and the boys of our group pulled up chairs next to the table, but not included in the group. Kristy and Heather insist (and I believe them) that they were at the sofa/ table first, the players walked out and recognized them, and sat down.

Mike flags a waitress and opens a tab, then orders drinks for all of our group plus the four of them (Red Bulls and vodkas is what they were drinking, which shouldn't surprise anyone).

A few more rounds ensued, and then Mike left to use the restroom. During that period, Backstrom called the waitress over and ordered a magnum of champagne. She first brought seven glasses, for the four players and us three girls, then they told her to bring five more to share with the rest of our group.

That was the interesting thing about these boys. They were stereo-typical: a bit self-centered, liked the girls attention, wanted us to ask questions about them, them, them. They also spoke in Swedish, excluding us, and never asked a reciprocal question.

But, they were never inappropriate with us girls, never including our significant others in any type of conversation, but covering their drinks.

Which brings me to why I pointed out that the magnum of champagne was ordered while Mike was in the restroom. If you recall, he had given the waitress his credit card to open a tab. She brought the credit card back when the campaign was ordered, and gave it to Robert. When Mike walked back, Robert pointed to the champagne and said, "Look what they just ordered." Mike jumped directly to where Robert wanted him to, and assumed that this was on his credit card. You can imagine the conversations between Robert and Mike.

After the campaign was kicked, both groups started to break up. Green and Backstrom picked up both the girls and the rest of our groups tab, again, a dichotomy from their attitude.

We left, half our group went to bed, and half went out for one more drink just to digest, "OMG, what just happened?!?"

The picture will come tomorrow when I get home. And more of our trip is to come, also, but I'm poolside right now and my battery has run pretty low. So more later!