I can't believe 5 days have passed since I last wrote. It might be because it's hard to type while in a straight jacket.

This past weekend I booked us into the Sheraton on Queen Street and after a miserable drive to the hotel on Saturday (a 15-minute drive took an hour and involved me grabbing the kids and abandoning Paul and the car even though we were only a small block from away - but slim chance of actually reaching the hotel before check out time the next day) checked in.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I consistently have THE WORST LUCK EVER when being assigned a room. This time, after waiting nearly an hour in line to check into the hotel (computer problems), I took the kids to our room on the second floor across from the ice and pop machine. Also the floor that management has sequestered all university students celebrating the end of reading week or perhaps celebrating the last bit of freedom before reading week starts...or perhaps just drunkenly celebrating.

Jakob was adorable when he first saw the room. He went into the bathroom and yelled out "Mommy, you've just GOT to see this! We have a BATHROOM! And look, there's a bathtub and a shower too!"

The other positive (almost as fabulous as having our own bathroom) and why I booked the hotel room was that the Sheraton has a swimming pool that is half inside and half outside which we took advantage of after seeing Spiderwick. The pool was fabulous, the kids had a great time. It felt almost magical breaking through the barrier separating inside from outside, where the mist rose from the water because of the temperature difference. It's unfortunate that the temperatures never seems to want to rise above -10 (-20 with wind chill) because you had to keep swimming under water to thaw out your head and hair.

It really was a fabulous time because being in a hotel encourages you to sit on the floor with your children for ages playing Go Fish and really treasuring the time.