Lala Mr. Sandman...bring me a dream?

It seems that life in the Stone household has been on fast forward for just about 2 years. We've gone from planning a wedding, to planning for a baby, to having a baby and then to moving to a totally different part of the province. There has been no shortage of drama, excitement, tears, anger, laughter, love and of course joy. It's been a wonderful roller coaster that seems has finally slowed down. We are now settled into a fantastic little home that we can see ourselves in for a substantial period of time, Corey is happy at work and as a Daddy, I am happy as a Momma and at work, Bethany is just generally happy and life feels a little calmer. Amen to that, God knew we needed a break!

Being that life has been so crazy, we really haven't had any time for a holiday, a treat of a vacation. So we decided that since we were going to be away for the weekend anyway, we'd stay in a hotel for 2 nights to treat us all. The idea was to give us a little bit of a break from reality, to unwind and refresh. I spent enourmous amounts of time on the phone, calling all sorts of motels and hotels in the Kelowna area, in search of a great deal and a great location. After much deliberation we decided to stay at the Sandman, even though it was out of our initial budget because it sounded nice, was a "reputable" (pft!) chain and had what looked like a good indoor pool. As you know from last night's post that was key - a pool for Bethy.

Thursday, I phoned because I had lost my confirmation number and I am big on double checking that everything is done. If I don't double check something gets forgotten or goes wrong. The girl that answered the phone was pleasant and informed me that she was glad I'd phoned because the Jr.Suite I was supposed to have with a king size bed and seperate living room had been flooded and we were being moved to a room with 2 queen size beds. She also said that, we'd be paying the same rate because it was a weekend "special" (pft, pft!!). I finished the call with her and prompty hung up to call around to other accomodations in the area to see if anyone had any vacancies, no luck. The only thing I came up with was a place that charged $279 a night for a basic, room. Uhhhh, no. Deciding that everything would be alright, we left our reservations the same and went on with our plans.

We checked in Saturday night and right from the start things didn't go well. There was no elevator so we had to hoof all of our 4 million baby bags, and 1 Mommy/Daddy bag up the stairs (I know sounds lazy...but hello, we're supposed to be relaxing! If I wanted a work out I'dve stayed at the gym.), we get to our room to find that it's got 2 beds, but they are crammed into the room, the "crib" that we were promised was actually a very, very old playpen that smelt gross and had no sheets and the room still had single paned windows in 2007! Thank goodness we'd packed our playpen and lots of blankets. We decided that since it was late we'd just get Beth into the tub, make bed time bottles and chill for the night. While Corey was attempting to bath our little girl in the cubicle sized bathroom I started to make her bottles. The problem, the coffee cups were dirty, the coffee maker was dirty and the stupid microwave would only beep at me. As if to say, "You think I'm going to work for you? Don't you know it's a long weekend? I'm on vacation BEEEP! Try again Tuesday BEEEP!" I was in the process of trying to figure out how I'd be able to throw it out the window without hitting the cars below and alerting the authorities when the breaker for the rooms on our side of the hotel blew! AAAARRRRGGG!

There was absolutely no light in the room what-so-ever and a baby in the tub. Corey and I switched places so that he could go call the front desk, I was too angry. The best they could say to all our problems was here's a kettle, we're checking on the breaker and that playpen's all we've got. Now I was on the verge of a melt down. I am a passionate person at times and with that also comes very passionate frustration and anger emotions. I decided to go out to the car myself and cool off for a second to get the rest of our things. Good thing - I might have done something to get myself arrested had I not.

We managed to get settled and get some sleep and figured that things would be better tomorrow. Hmmmm, Wrong. We had a lovely day Sunday and came back to our room ready to forget the day before, have some fun and relax. We put Bethy in her swim suit and head for the pool. Where we had a lovely time, it wasn't the greatest of pools but it could have been worse and the loud and abnoxious boys/men didn't stay very long. After getting back to our room just before throwing my husband and my daughter into the tub, Corey notices that the housekeeping had pushed our playpen against the heater and almost melted the side. Grrrr, I was annoyed but those poor girls work so hard, I didn't want to complain. We moved it away and headed for the tub. All seemed to be going well, Bethy went down and we settled in to rest. That's when I noticed the smell of smoke.

Not fire smoke, but cigarette smoke, bleck!!!! I thought maybe it was in my head but it kept getting worse and worse. I had sort of noticed it the night before but just assumed it was left on the furniture of something. This time however, it was clear that it was more than just stale smoke, it was coming from somewhere. We walked into the bathroom and found that the smell was pooring through the bathroom fan. It was aweful, and nausiating and Corey is very allergic. This time, he was upset and headed for the front desk to take them on face to face. Go Corey, Go! The best they could tell him was that, all the rooms below us were smoking and that is must be coming through the ventaltion system. They could move us but we had just put Bethy down and I needed her to get some sleep this time so the only alternative for us was to leave the fan on all night to draw out the air. Great, thanks, you're too kind. (That by the way is dripping with sarcasm.)

Again, chosing to make the best of things, we had a little chat with each other and God. Took a bottle of chill pills and headed to bed. Just as we're settling down, some lovely fellow decided to burn donuts in the empty parking lot next to us and blast his base so loud our window panes were dancing. All Corey could say was "I wish I had a paintball gun...." He finally left and we once again dozed off. 1am I was awakened by the fact that Corey, Bethany and I were all dretched in sweat and the room was stiffling. The stupid heaters had kicked in and wouldn't kick out. I got up, unplugged them, and opened our windows. This is when I discovered they have no screens, niiiice. That, we are assuming is how the stink bug found it's way into our room.

Morning came, and we were checking out. I've never been so glad to be going home. A clean bed, and peace to boot. The manager at the front desk was kind and gave us a discount on our room, that at least made us feel a little better. However, not so much better that we'd stay at another Sandman. We've heard numerous stories since, of their lack of building maintanance, poor service and high prices. Where were these people last week?!

All in all, we had a great weekend in spite our "nightmare" from the Sandman and have come to one major conclusion.

There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place...