The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Day 4)

We spent the day settling into our hotel, shopping, and hanging out at the hotel. Here are my thoughts on the day.
The Good
I love our hotel! Which is weird because we aren't staying at Embassy Suites this time and we aren't staying at a hotel with room service or free breakfast. Instead we are staying at the Courtyard Marriott that is about 3/4 of a mile from Ken's work. We ended up getting a suite for the same price as staying at ES. I was really nervous about this and double-booked us hotels for the following weeks. If it were only up to me I would say that we would stay here, but alas the kids love their cooked-to-order breakfast. And I'm only feeding them cereal. I brought a pancake griddle but we have been so busy that I haven't made them any.

Anyway, this is why I love the Courtyard better (which I can't believe I'm saying)

It's close enough to Ken's work that he can ride his bike! The only thing I hate about coming with Ken on his business trips is actually having to get him to work in the morning. He likes to be at the office at 7am, whereas I like to wake-up around 9am. And then getting everyone else up and ready to go and in the car is a pain. The other option we do about half the time, is he will just take the car to work in the morning but then we can't really get out and go until after lunch. But now he just rides his bike in the morning and me and the kids are free to wake-up whenever we feel like it.

The suite is bigger and has a better layout. With the 6 of us we need all the space we can get. Plus it is nice to not just be a straight line-up of two rooms, better sound control. It was also just updated this year and everything looks nice and new. I also really like the decorating scheme. It feels very Asian Spa-ish.




We have a little patio. This is key since we have parked our bikes on it, we are on the ground floor.

There is still an indoor pool. I can't believe places around here actually have outdoor pools, but they do. It's the summer and only 75 degrees outside. It's totally beautiful weather but it would make it impossible for my children to spend hours swimming outside, let alone 30 minutes.

It has an actual courtyard with nice furniture for dining or lounging. We had a great time eating a picnic outside today.


The kids rode bikes and played around outside while I made lunch. It's just big enough for Darin, Nathan, and Rose to all ride their bikes throughout the courtyard. And just small enough to keep Ginger within my sight as she explores. And it totally helps that there are no openings for her to escape through! I know we are going to be spending alot of time out there.



The hotel is practically empty. We have only seen two other guests and a few cleaning people and maintenance men. It is especially empty during the day because all of the guests are business men. That really means our family gets the pool and courtyard to ourselves all day long!

The Bad
We made a few shopping trips today and they were just plain horrible. By the end of the last one it was time to pick up Ken and I was crying. That's how awful!

The first one was to Safeway to stock up on groceries. I plan on cooking most of our meals because:
A. It's too expensive to eat out for 3 weeks straight.
B. I can only stand so much of eating at restaurants after awhile (like 3-4 days) I get very conscious about somebody constantly touching my food.
C. It's extremely unhealthy for my family.

I always know it is going to be interesting shopping for groceries in CA. The stores are so much smaller, more expensive, and then there are the people. It should have been an omen to just turn around and leave when about 8 steps into the store Nathan stepped on the back of my flip flop as I was walking and ended up breaking a strap. I mean hello-- how much of a clue do you need when you have to spend the next hour or so shuffling with a lame shoe around the store.

That wasn't the worse part though. The people were totally and completely awful. I only got about a million dirty looks. No, seriously give me a dirty look when all of my children are lined up to the side of the aisle patiently waiting for you to pass because you are not only blocking the aisle, but stopping every other step to compare the different organic brands.

We spent a huge amount of time just waiting off to the side because people kept cutting us off. And heaven forbid we actually pulled out in front of them when they were 3 or 4 aisles away. They actually would get huffy and act like we just cut them off and be impatient that they were waiting. Even though, hello, we were waiting too since there were other people in front of us.

And then there are all of the stares like we are a circus act or something. Seriously 4 kids is not an absurd amount of children. And with how well-behaved they were, I can't believe we didn't even get smiles. The kids were really great! Everytime I go shopping in Texas I always get at least one comment and plenty of smiles at how cute my girls are. But you would think we looked like gangsters who were about to mug them with the way they looked at us.

The second trip wasn't much better. The kids were great all day and really wanted to go to Toys R Us. I decided to take them before we picked up Ken from work. We also needed to get swim toys. Toys R Us didn't have swim toys. It took the boys an hour to decide upon what they were going to buy, only to have it end up being a little bit more, and then with the price of batteries they couldn't afford it. Disappointing-- So I was going to take them to Target. Well, as we were leaving and I was getting all the kids in the car, a women came out of the toy store and was seriously angry with us that she could not get in her car that was parked beside us.

Is it just me, but if I came out of the store 5 minutes earlier, am in the process of buckling my last baby in, and the rest of my kids are tumbling into the car that I shouldn't have to stop everything I am doing just so she can get in her car and drive away??? And all of this right in front of a toy store, which I think is a socially accepted place for children to be at even in the Bay Area.

So we went to Target, and the boys spent another hour looking at toys. They flip flopped about a hundred times. And ended up not buying anything again! Then as we were leaving Darin realizes he doesn't have his wallet. So that required 10 minutes to look for. Which was okay because I saw that they overcharged me for a bag that I bought to hold our beach gear, by $8 and it was just a nylon flimsy bag that was supposed to be $2. I went to the front to tell them, and they refused to go and look and see if I was right since the canvas, sturdy bags were right next to them for$10. But she would only refund it. And by that time, I was sooooo exhausted and ready to be done, so I got my refund and left.

The Ugly
At night we were eating dinner out in the courtyard and Darin and Nathan were going back to our room to grab a drink. Darin was running and didn't see or think about the screen on the sliding door and just thought it was open. He ran right into the screen at full blast and tore it up. He was okay, but the screen was not. It got shredded. This is the best picture I was able to take of it.

Ken and Darin went to the front desk to talk to them about it. They said they would have the maintenance man look at it and if the frame was broken we would have to pay for it but if it was just the screen then we wouldn't. Darin is really hoping it will just be the screen. We think it is just the screen.