Here's our living room:
Here's our bedroom, more like here is the Girl's Bedroom and they would graciously let us share a bed. That would be letting me share it with them, not me and Ken sharing our own bed.
Sleeping arrangements on this trip did not go as well as we had hoped. Both girls wanted to be wrapped around my arms all night. And it didn't help that they were sick the first few days. It was restless sleeping all around. But I'm glad Ken was still very thankful we came with him on his business trip! I really had to wonder some of the nights when they tossed and turned and only left Ken an 8" sliver of bed to cuddle up to me on. At least we were cozy, right!
I think one of the best parts of staying in a hotel as a kid is the elevator. They are totally fascinated with them. Rose loved pushing the buttons to call the elevator. Of course we had to say it in Spanish for her to know which one to push: Abajo or Arriba. Dora is a heavy influence in our house.
Ginger loved it, but she would never go by the glass. Most of the elevator is glass because it overlooks the atrium, but Ginger would always walk in and position herself on this little section of wall. And then she would reach back and brace herself.
One of the best parts of our room is that we were a corner suite. It was so nice knowing that no one could hear my kids messing around in the room. Which they did quite frequently.
They just loved playing around with each other. All 4 of them played pretty well most of the trip. It took them until the 2nd week for the girls to even care that we brought a container full of toys.
We spent a good chunk of the first week at the swimming pool. We were going swimming twice a day, which doesn't sound like a ton. Except that we would spend 3-4 hours swimming when Ken was working and then swim at night again.
The boys met a 10yr old boy named Patrick at the pool the first night we were there. We would meet him swimming a couple of times. And then I ended up babysitting him one day. That was kind of crazy and I don't know exactly how I got roped into a whole day thing.
His mom was attending a conference and his Aunt and Uncle were watching him. The boys wanted to play video games together. I thought we could meet in the Atrium and the kids could play for awhile. But apparently I'm trustworthy or something and they let him come to our room for 3 hours. Then to the pool with just me and my 4 kids for another 3 hours. I didn't really mind because my boys loved making a friend. It's just kind of weird that some strangers who don't even know my name will let me take care of their kid, at a hotel no less, where everyone is transient. It's something I would never even consider.
I did let the boys do some risky things at the hotel though. Well, not risky, but it felt super risky to me because I am so used to always keeping a tab on them and it was way more freedom then I ever gave them before. Who knew that a roll of quarters would symbolize so much freedom to my boys. They totally loved it!
I let them go to the lobby and get a roll of quarters for laundry. I let them go out and do the laundry by themselves. I let them go get a soda down the hallway a few times. And I even let them go to the gift shop by themselves to buy a candy bar (I had to sneak a peak at them over the balcony for that one).
It's just so hard to let them grow up. But I figured it would be a good experience for them and it did help me out not having to haul the girls everywhere. And the hotel was pretty much dead during the day. You better believe they were on a strict leash of go there and come straight back. "It should take you 90 seconds..."
Embassy Suites always has awesome breakfasts. The cooked to order part is great. Especially when after you have been there for a week and everyone knows who you are and starts making 6 pancakes because they see your family coming.
I sent the boys up to the room one morning to grab something for the girls. Ken and I were doing our routine to get everyone fed. He was grabbing hot food and and I was mixing up the 5 hot chocolates. It took me the same amount of time to mix up all the Hot chocolates as it took everyone in the family to get their whole meal, probably around 7-10 minutes.
A women came up to me and said, "Are these your boys?" Isn't that the statement that makes every mother's heart just stop! Like "Oh, no. What did they do?" Or am I just the kind of parent that assumes the worse, isn't that awful???
Anyway, she wanted to compliment me on how polite my boys are. She said, "They were perfect gentlemen on the elevator. They held the door open for the adults, they asked them what floor they needed pushed, they were quiet as they rode, and then they let all of the adults off first as they pushed the button to keep the door open."
I just about died from happiness! Except there they were in line to get their pancakes but kept forgetting something like a napkin or fork so all of a sudden they would swing their arm out of the line and reach across the aisle barely missing hitting some guy walking through. And Rose was trying to help stir the Hot Chocolate which is never really a great idea for a 3 year old, and a man was trying to get past me (meaning me, Rose, and Ginger in a stroller) to get his coffee at the same time.
So it wasn't quite my best moment of thanking her. I thanked her, but I got the feeling she walked away thinking; "Those young men are so nice I wonder who they got it from because it certainly wasn't their mother."
We also ate the snacks at the managers reception. Along with our usual Shirley Temples. Everyone loves Shirley Temples except Darin, he likes juice. If at least one of the girls are asleep we can play cards while we eat our snacks and drinks.
One night we thought it was especially perfect because Ginger was so sleepy and hadn't taken a nap. She was sooooo close to dozing off so we figured if we gave her, her bottle she would be out. So we let the boys bring down Clue.
Well it turned out awful. At least the hotel was practically empty. But that little sneaky girl kept running off. At first she just kept going by the waterfall and this one exit. So we blocked it off so she could still play by the waterfall but not go out. That stopped her for like 2 minutes. Then she went around to the other exits. She dodged Ken around tables and chairs, plants, and people. It was not fun!
Well, except the part where I won!!! The boys totally thought they had it and beat us to making guesses. It just turned out they were wrong and I ended up winning.
And out last fun memory at the hotel was just chillin in the room. We watched 4 movies. We ate 16 Haagan Daz bars, YUMMY! I bought a big box of them at Sam's and stuck them in our mini-fridge freezer. It was the perfect dessert.
The boys loved the few times we got room service. They were in charge of the $$$ for each day and were seriously frugal. They would rather have me make them a PB&J sandwich then pay for dinner. One night Ken had a work dinner (that I was not about to take our 4 kids too, since that would like double the group of people) so he said we should have room service for dinner. The boys didn't want to until their Dad said he would pay for it instead of it coming out of our money for the trip. Which is really kind of sad because I am a big lover of room service:-(
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