Today Jonas and I celebrated 9 years of marriage. To commemorate this occasion, we offered to babysit the kids of some friends about to have their 3rd baby, and also invited over Noah Caron and his daughter Vivian...because why not, right??
We actually did celebrate last weekend. My Mom came to stay with the kids for a night while we went away to the "W" hotel in downtown Minneapolis, in the Foshay tower. It was a very nice, LOW KEY, relaxing time for sure...with our main goal being to just stay in and watch movies. But boy were we taken to the cleaners, folks...haha! Jonas selected that room because it was actually the best deal he could find online ($140 for a room that is regularly $400, etc.). What we didn't take into account were all the ways that a ritzy place actually tries to nickle and dime you like Spirit Airlines. We'd have been MUCH better off going to a cheap hotel along 494, but live and learn...we'll know for next year. For example: at any normal, average, cheap-ish hotel around here you get free parking (obviously), free internet (no brainer), low-ish cost movies ($8 rental for room service rentals), and often a free breakfast (boring and bland food, but hey, it's food, and free right?). At our lovely, ritzy hotel? It was $30 for each of our cars to park in a local garage...and of course we both drove there. If we had use valet service it would have been $40 each. It was $30 for just THREE HOURS of internet...something we did not buy, because no way man. That's not our America!!! Anything in the fridge mini-bar is laughably priced. We ordered an omelet and eggs/sausage/toast the next morning from room service: $50. We had even TRIED to save money by bringing some sushi and salmon/brie cheese with us from home for dinner the night before, but we had forgotten bread/crackers so we called down to have them send some up to us. Any guess on what 3 slices of bread cut in half runs at the W Minneapolis? $15...plus a tip for the guy who delivers it, of course. By the end of our trip we were just laughing. It felt like we were THROWING money out the window for kicks. :)
Wheeeeeeee! 9 years! Let's each take turns seeing who can flush $5 bills down the toilet the fastest!!! Ready?? Go!
Haha. Sigh. Good times. LESSONS LEARNED. Clearly we are not fancy people who do this "hotel" stuff enough to know the rules of the game.
But, thank you to my Mother for watching the kids overnight during Croup season around here (always a gamble...), and to Jonas for putting up with me for 9 years. Jonas is a very good man. I'm lucky to have him. :)
Lisa
