farewell to the RI

Tonight is my 35th and final night at the Residence Inn! Tomorrow night I'll be sleeping in my very own home. It would have been nice to sleep on my own bed but I waited too long to schedule the PODS delivery so our first night will be spent in an empty house. I'm so excited to move out of this hotel that I'm not as mad about it (and because I probably should have spent less time watching reruns of Gray's Anatomy last week and more time organizing the move). With all this hotel living under my belt, I think I have a few extended stay tips:

1. Use the front desk. If you don't like your bed, ask for a new one (we had 3!). Need a place to take the kids, ask for a museum or park reference. If they say the pizza from somewhere is bad...it is!

2. Whenever possible, stay in a suite. Having my kids asleep in a different area than the living space was so good. I got to have a little life (if you call the above mentioned entertainment a life!) after their bedtime.

3. Buy a new ball. This was the toy both my kids had the most fun playing with. Probably because we don't usually play with bouncy balls inside our house. More time was spent with the purple bounce ball than all other toys I painstakingly chose to bring.

4. Make new friends. Afton was excited to play with anyone- adult or child- at the pool, which helped me strike up conversations with lots of interesting people. We adopted a few grandma's, played with 15-20 kids from Maryland, Wyoming, Indiana, and California just to name a few states.