Unexpected blessings

In my last post, I mentioned an incredibly long drive I would have to make to get my husband home from his business trip. We booked a hotel on Priceline in St. Louis (sort of midway on our trip home) so we wouldn't have to drive through the night.

I was a little disappointed in my Priceline attempt. My husband uses it ALL THE TIME for work and gets AMAZING deals. I thought my bid was a little higher than I should have gone, and I had to change my preferences and add the downtown area in order to get accepted. I like downtown, but you always have to pay for parking, which is a major drag.

Anyway, we got the Hilton, a boutique hotel in downtown St. Louis. Nice rooms, great beds, beautiful lobby. But we had quite a bit of trouble parking. They gave us a card to access the garage, and it wouldn't work. When my husband went back inside to try to figure it out, he ended up mentioning the reason we were staying in St. Louis in the first place...the awful ear infection and inability to fly home from his trip.

Well, the desk clerk felt so bad about our situation and our trouble with the parking garage that he valet-parked our car for free. AND he gave us two complimentary breakfasts. Which doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but I LOVE breakfast, and this was a full, hot breakfast, with sausages and eggs and french toast and breakfast potatoes. AND, it was $16.00 per person. So we never would have eaten there otherwise. If not for these free vouchers, we would have picked up fast food breakfast on the road and wouldn't have had the opportunity to enjoy a leisurely, delicious breakfast in the beautiful hotel restaurant before getting back on the road for our day of driving.

So yesterday wasn't so bad. And then we picked up Olivia, who was so happy and surprised to see her Daddy. (When you've been away for almost a week, I would imagine that little ones think it has been a long, long time since they've seen you.)

This morning I'm packing for yet another trip. This time it's an overnight trip to visit my husband's college for an event. Olivia is coming with us, and she spent a good deal of the morning napping in preparation to keep us up in the hotel tonight (I'm sure that's her motivation). No worries, though... her long nap gave me an opportunity to pack and then write this blog entry. I just checked on her a few minutes ago. This is how she looked. I thought it was cute that she and her little dolly were sleeping in the same position.



She loves her dolly and cuddles with it when she is awake and playing in her crib. Honestly, I'm not sure, though, how they both ended up in this position. When I laid her down, her head was on the other end, next to dolly's head, and she was covered with a blanket. Somehow, she got turned around and is sleeping on top of both blankets. Whatever. She is pretty warm natured and would probably sleep naked if I let her.