South Beach: Vizcaya Museum and Gardens & Mango's Nightclub

It’s pretty awesome to me that Sean and Eric have become such great friends. Such great friends in fact, that Eric asked Sean to be Cate’s godfather. Not going to lie, I was pretty shocked. I mean, they are two people that became friends just because their wives are best friends. I really, really love that our husbands get along the way that they do as it always makes for such a great time when we are all together.

Moving on, Friday during the day the guys went out and did their thing and Colleen and I headed to Vizcaya Museum and Gardens to do our thing. Because let's be honest, we're in Miami and it would have been pulling teeth to get our guys to willingly do this with us, ha.

The museum we visited was once lived in by a very wealthy man (James Deering) who wanted the elaborate mansion to appear as though it was 500 years old, although it was built in the early 1900s. He had traveled to many places and also lived in Paris for quite some time which you could tell based on a lot of the architecture in the mansion. It was actually really interesting to hear how the home was built. An interesting piece of tidbit we received was that the IRS did not exist during this time so all this money this man had was all his. Basically the rich were rich, rich, rich ... and had no one looking into anything they did. It is so interesting (at least to me) to think about, when we see how the IRS rules everything around us today.

Also at the time he built this mansion, Miami was not what it is today. It was mosquito ridden and undesirable and certainly not the place where the wealthy were building their homes. It is believed that James Deering was secretly gay and wanted his privacy hence why he built in Miami.

Here are a ton of pictures because, well, you know how I do … no self control.

After the museum we took an Uber to Collins Avenue and decided that we were craving Cuban food. So we asked around and was led several blocks away to Puerto Sagua Restaurant. If you’re looking for a fancier more touristy place (no pretensions, no frills) to eat while in Miami this is not the place for you. If you’re looking for some delicious, authentic Cuban food then you’re at the right place. We had Sean try some of Colleen’s leftover Cuban sandwich (not pictured) from here and he was blown away.

Afterwards we met up with the guys at the beach to relax and then left to get ready for the night. We were celebrating the guys birthdays at Mango’s Nightclub where we had way too much fun!

We booked a show and dinner and it was seriously a blast. All types of musical performances from Tina Turner, Michael Jackson to some carnival dancing. After that we club crawled and just danced the night away.

Truly one of the best nights that I’ve had in a while. ♥