Mercy and the Boys: The Palace

Earlier this month we were privileged to travel to another country (about 6 time zones and a 10 hour plane ride away from here) for a terrific week with other people like us. The time itself was a wonderful experience, but better saved for personal conversations with us. What I wanted to share here is about the absolutely incredible blessing we received while we were there. It was held in this huge, very nice hotel. When we arrived (after leaving our home at 9pm the night before and traveling all night) it was still too early to check in. So we waited while some dear friends occupied the children's attention. The kids did great on the 10 hour flight, by the way. It was an amazing plane where we each had our own personal screens and tons of movies, shows, and games to choose from. The boys were ecstatic. Mercy pretty much slept in my arms the entire flight, so it doesn't get any better than that for an active under-the-age-of-2 year old. Anyway, we arrive at the hotel, wait for a while, then are finally assigned to a huge suite with 2 enormous rooms. We were like, "Wow, this is great!" We got settled, unpacked a little bit, then headed to lunch in the hotel restaurant. Buffet with 4 small kids is always an adventure. While at lunch, a guy comes up to us to inform us that the hotel has discovered that the heat in our room doesn't work and that they were going to have to move us to another room. The staff was kind of embarrassed to have to move us, so they were going to "upgrade" us for free. We couldn't imagine how we could have a nicer room than the one they already gave us, but oh well. A few hours later we have all our stuff packed, the bellhop comes to get us and take us to the new room. He's totally taken with our 4 children and is even letting the 3 boys ride on top of the luggage on the luggage cart as he pushes it down the hallway. They were hooping and hollering like they were on a ride at the fair. Fun times. We get to the new room, also knows as the "King's Suite", and our mouths drop open as we walk into the nicest, plushest, fanciest suite we have ever seen. I still can't believe they put us in there with our kids, but they did! When the bellhop guy left he said to us in broken English, "You came here with 4 children, maybe you will leave with 5!" I turned beet red and couldn't believe he said that to us! :o) There was velvet everywhere - on the wall, the curtains, the bedspread, the pillows. It was basically 2 absolutely enormous rooms again, but much, much nicer than the previous suite. Seriously, it was almost as big as our apartment that we're currently living in. One room was a huge living room area with a dining room table and chairs, couch set, and huge flat screen tv on the wall. All the lights and lamps looked like chandeliers. There were also 3 extra beds in there for each boy to sleep in. And there was a little bar room off of that one where we put Mercy's pack-n-play for her to sleep in. Then there was the ridiculously huge bedroom with a king sized bed, large desk, and another flat screen tv. Off of the bedroom there was a huge balcony that looked out over the ocean. Really beautiful view. Okay, THEN there was the biggest hotel bathroom I've ever seen. Complete with jacuzzi. It was absolutely amazing, really. The whole thing. I just kept thinking how much we didn't deserve something that nice, but what a huge gift it was to our whole family. We stayed there for a week and never had to pay any extra. The boys kept referring to the room as The Palace, and indeed it did seem like one to us. The whole week would have been fantastic without it, but it was just a sweet gift, kind of icing on the cake for us all. Thank you, Father! Here are some pictures so you can try to get a glimpse of what we enjoyed...