Hilton’s logo is two capital “H’s” side-by-side.  One day, walking down the hill from school towards the hotel, we spotted the large ‘HILTON’ name and logo on the top of the building.  “There it is!” Caleigh exclaimed, more to celebrate almost being there and the walk coming to an end, than an expression of gladness over our destination. We started to chat about the Hotel being our home ‘right now’; everyone was reluctant to call it “home”, so we started to think about how we could assimilate those two capital “H’s” to better reflect what the Hilton was to us.  “Happy Hotel Home” beat out all the rest, and I’m glad that the kids seem to feel okay being here.  Home is where we five are anyway, no matter what four walls are around us!

We feel fortunate to have found very kind, helpful people here in the staff.  We know that a long-term stay family is a big ticket item for a hotel, and they are treating us accordingly!   Our servers at dinner time have been so great with the kids, showing them how to fold linen napkins in many fancy ways.  The kids have asked me to be sure that we get some cloth napkins when we move into our house, as they plan to fold them ‘fancy-style’ for our meals.:) We’ve gone from being very anonymous to coming down for dinner and “our” table is set with the drinks we like.  No fewer than three servers help us each night…at first we kind of found it very efficient but the fish-bowl effect is growing old… it’s hard to have a conversation of any delicacy or confidentiality.  The kitchen has been very accommodating of our dietary preferences.  Sometimes, if we’re pretty organized in the morning, we place our order for the evening – they have made us spaghetti, Chicken Caesar Salad, soup and sandwich, pepperoni pizzas (every Friday in our room for “Movie Night” – they all know Friday is Movie Night and at least one staff asks us how we enjoyed our movie the next day!), roast chicken with veg and potato.  This past Saturday we were talking to our favourite chef who has travelled from Peru to gain experience in a big-city, big-name Hotel.  She was saying how homesick she is… we were able to relate to this and had a lovely time commiserating!:)   As we were heading to a restaurant for dinner that night, she asked us what she could make us for Sunday’s supper.  We asked for roast chicken and mashed potatoes.  She added green beans with garlic, and surprised us with apple pie!  Total comfort food!  In this regard, even though we are not “at home” we are feeling cared for.

We did have a funny moment with our “special order” status… apparently the day I ordered a spaghetti meal the gentleman I spoke to was not aware of our arrangement (there have been a few hiccups due to the switch-up of staff over the holiday season).   I called the front desk and was patched through to “room service” which should have been my first clue that this might not work out in our favour… We don’t usually arrange our evening meal this way, but anyways…by the time Aaron got home and we sat down together for dinner, our favourite poofy bread (they make it in the wood fired oven) was set on the table and out comes ONE plate of spaghetti, ONE Caesar salad and four menus…I learned that night that you need to specify “how many” spaghetti’s  you want!!!  We all had a good laugh and they were amazing to whip up four more spaghetti dinners!!  Honestly, they really CAN do anything in that kitchen!

You know the guacamole is good when your kid is dreaming of his new life in his new home and it includes Mom making and serving guac and tortillas everyday after school… he might have a rude awakening coming… they all might – they are getting spoiled being served all the time…(at least they are still using their manners!) They love Mary Anne on the 9th floor lounge where we go daily to get homework done.  She always brings Mansell his own big bowl of guacamole (he was going through about 12 of the little appetizer-sized plates most of us have to settle for – a lot of dishes!!) Easier just to bring this kid his own bowl of dip!!  The guacamole IS really good – it’s creamy with just the right spicy kick.

The geek in all of us is loving the 9th floor lounge for the “Star Trek” entrance door.  Once you swipe your hotel key card over the raised silver circle on the wall, woosh! the door slides open, just like in Star Trek!!!  The “beam-me-up” jokes are never far behind and get a giggle every time!! And watching that door open is just not getting old – it’s SO kewl!!

Breakfast is served everyday in the 9th floor lounge from 6:30-10:30.  We had a favourite staff member in Karina – she was very kind and so helpful!  The day the kids started school and Aaron went to work was a rough one for me.  She took the time to talk with me when I was up there eating my breakfast and really seemed to “get” that this day might be tough.  She was also very encouraging and I felt much better by the time I was finished.  We were sad to see her go last week – on her last day I made sure to bring her some Maple Syrup and we exchanged contact info., so hopefully we can keep in touch!

Hotel keys for long-term “Hotel Home” stays are proving to be a nightmare with kids.  We have had to have them replaced more than once and more than once they’ve become a mysterious treasure discovered on the bottom of the pool, “Look! Someone lost their keys!” and the word ‘someone’ is dripping with incredulity as they say it.  How COULD someone be so daft as to actually lose their keys IN the POOL?!?  And we collect ‘someone’s’ keys from the edge of the pool when we leave under the guise of “We’d better return these to the front desk – ‘someone’ is probably looking for them”… however, before they make it that far, our suspicion that they might actually be OUR keys is confirmed when we give them a try on our door upon return from our swim.   We say nothing, but continue to encourage the kids to keep their keys in a single spot when they are not in their pockets.  The kid whose day it is to operate the elevator is always very good about having their keys, but that’s only one day in three.   And because we have two rooms between the five of us, we also have 10 keys between the five of us… awesome!

We keep our pool and jacuzzi (hot tub) 🙂 on the 15th floor where the kids love to go to decompress after school each day.  Has been a great space to work off steam and to debrief the tough early days of school transition.  Often we can see helicopters flying over or below us as they land on high rise building rooftop landing pads.  During Epiphany celebrations on Jan 6, we saw hundreds of colourful balloons float by and up into the sky – was really neat!!   Very thankful for the pool!

“Happy Hotel Home” has been good to us; a great place to be to allow us to find our bearings here.