The Magic City Celebrates 114 Years

The City of Miami is celebrating its 114th birthday today and what's a birthday without a birthday bash! The City of Miami will celebrate by giving back to the community by unveiling a statue of Julia Tuttle, "Mother of Miami." Julia Tuttle is being recognized as a visionary and the only woman to found a major city in the United States. She made outstanding achievements in spite of the limitations placed on women in 1896. To read more about Julia Tuttle, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle

The 10-foot bronze statue will be unveiled at 9:30 a.m. in Bayfront Park in downtown Miami. The event is free and open to the public.

The celebration continues in the evening, with the City of Miami's Birthday Celebration at 6:00 p.m. at the American Airlines Arena. The event will capture all the sights, sounds, and tastes of the Magic City with live musical performances including Miami's own Jon Secada singing "Happy Birthday" and tastings from local restaurants, complimentary cocktails and much more. Tickets are $25 per person with all proceeds going to community charity organizations including Allapattah Community Action, Best Buddies, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Centro Mater, CHARLEE House, Downtown Miami Partnership, Friends of Gusman, Friends of Marine Stadium, Friends of Miami-Dade Public Library, Hands On Miami, Switchboard Miami, Voices For Children, YMCA.

It's never too late...June's Employee of the Month and Star Performer

As you can see, I am a bit behind in keeping you up to date. Sorry about that, things have just been so busy but without further adieu may I present to you Fanny Salcedo, Solara's June 2010 Employee of the month...

Fanny has been a part of the Solara family since Dec. 2002 and is a valued member of our Housekeeping team.

Another worthy person on our team is Cebert "Junior" Wedemier and he has the honor of receiving June's Star Performer Award.

Junior started with us as a Temp in our Activities department during the summer of 2008 and came back to work with us on a full time bases as our Activities Director in Aug. 2009. He is in charge of organizing all the activities here at Solara. Let's just say that he is a perfect fit for us and without him this would not be as fun (or interesting).

4th of July at Solara was a BLAST

This year Solara had the BEST 4th of July ever. How could we not, we had Uncle Sam on our team!

Did you pay your taxes???

Our very own Jonathan Berney, the newest member of our activities team dressed up as Uncle Sam to entertain our guests and staff alike. Here are some pictures of our staff having some Dress Up fun before the event.

And here are some of the best pictures from the BBQ and Picnic Games.

(Click on the picture to enlarge)

We had bobbing for apples, pin the beard on Uncle Sam, Potato Sack races and a Water Mellon eating contest with winners in both the kids and adult "division".

It was truly a BLAST and can't wait till the next big event.

Dog Days of Summer

Ahhh, the dog days of summer are upon us and we are already feeling the heat. The weather may say that it's only 85F but step out side and it feels like a sauna. Luckily we have the ocean (Tar Free) and what better way to spend your vacation than enjoying the water or participating in some our our July Activities like Water Mellon eating contest, Paper Boat race, S'mores Night or Beans and Franks lunch plus so much more...

(Click to enlarge)

Did you also know that July is Hot Dog Month? Well it is. Here's a brief history on one of America's favorite foods...

• July 23rd is National Hot Dog Day
• In 1904, the hot dog was introduced to America at the St. Louis World's Fair.
• That same year, George J. French introduced his French's mustard.
• In 1916, Nathan Handwerker started his own Coney Island boardwalk business, 'Nathan's', to sell hot dogs for a nickel. This has become an America tradition at ball parks and picnics.
• Joey Chestnut holds the world record for eating 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes!
• Americans eat more than 16 billion hot dogs each year. America eats about 150 million hot dogs on the 4th of July (about 2 billion for the whole month of July).