Fire + Flood = Best Free Vacation EVER

Who would have thought that having our apartment building catch fire and then have flooding would be the best thing that ever happened to us?

When we came home from Utah over Memorial Day weekend, we woke up at 5am in Vegas so that I could drop Chauncey off at work on the way home.  I finally pulled into our parking spot with a car full of three over-tired children.  It was over 100 degrees outside, and I was not looking forward to the AC taking a while to cool our apartment down.  I was however, looking forward to putting them all down for naps.  But Maxwell, who had run ahead, ran back to me with a terrified expression on his face and told me that there were bad guys in our apartment coming to steal all of our stuff. 

I thought he was trying to scare me, so I laughed and said “Very funny.”  He was adamant about it, and so I said “Well, you were probably looking in the wrong apartment.”  He said “No mommy!  There really are bad guys in there!!!”  I could tell that he was sincere, so I walked to our apartment before getting the baby out to take a peek.  The first thing I noticed when I opened the door was the pungent mildew odor.  It was absolutely disgusting.  Water damage had cooked in the heat over the long weekend.  Sure enough, there had been several men in our apartment, but unlike Maxwell, I was not afraid because a sign on the door explaining the emergency and the men’s maintenance uniforms told me that there had been a problem in the building.

The maintenance workers explained that there had been a fire over the weekend, followed by flooding caused by the fire-fighters breaking some of the pipes.  I went and got the kids out of the car, who threw several tantrums while I talked to the maintenance staff.  They told me that our apartment had suffered a lot of flooding damage, and that much of our personal property would have to be professionally cleaned or replaced.  There had been an inch of water on the floor.  They informed me that it would take days to fix everything, and that we had to stay somewhere else.  They needed to have professional movers move everything out of the apartment, cut out one of the walls to fix the pipes, clean or replace the carpet, get all of our personal belongings and clothes dry cleaned, wait for it to dry, and then move it all back in.  I felt myself getting a headache from all the stress of the situation.  My first thought was that I did not want to pay tons of money to get our belongings cleaned and our furniture replaced.  Then I remembered that we have renter’s insurance.  I called a friend and asked her to babysit for a couple of hours while I collected important belongings like passports, social security cards, birth certificates, and family photos in part because maintenance people would be going in and out of there, and in part because I feared that they could lose or damage those documents when they moved everything out.

I then arranged to stay at my friend Christine Leavitt’s place.  She would not be home until nine, so I killed time by taking the kids to Chipotle, and then to Old Navy.  The next morning my insurance agent returned my call.  I thought to ask if I had coverage to stay in a hotel, and he said yes, and that I had no deductible for that!  They just subtract what I normally pay in groceries and subtract that first.  Then I asked what my limit was, and whether they would cover our food too.  He said yes, and that there was no limit, but that we had to be “reasonable.”  I tested the water by asking if about $15 per person for the five of us per meal would be ok.  He said that was fine.  I asked if we could eat at hotel restaurants, and he said yes.   

I realized then that this was going to be a great opportunity to take lemons and turn them into lemonade.    After getting off the phone with him, I remembered that Chauncey’s cousin Jodi is married to someone who works for Marriott.  I called and asked her about the friends and family discount that she had mentioned previously.  She gave me a promo code to use online, and I found out that since it is their slow time of year that it was only $145 per night if we stay for a week!  (It is normally a TON more than that for one of their basic rooms).  I talked to my insurance agent and explained that I would be staying somewhere really nice but with a discount and told him the price.  He said that was completely fine.  Jodi’s husband was amazing and upgraded us to an executive suite, so we would have more room.  It suddenly became a free, millionaire-style vacation.

We are currently staying in an Executive Suite at the JW Marriott Resort at Desert Ridge.  It is AMAZING.  There is a water park in the back.  There are hundreds of bunnies running around the grounds outside (which the kids love).  Our hotel room is probably bigger than our apartment.  I don’t have to cook or clean.  The food is scrumptious!  There is even a gluten-free bakery at the hotel, so I have been eating everything from gluten-free pizza, to donuts, to pancakes, to bread.  There is an incredible buffet every morning.  We went to the buffet yesterday and enjoyed every type of berry with cream, traditional breakfast foods, and some funny things too like Prickly-Pear/Watermelon juice with mint leaves. 

We have been trying to cover our bases to make sure we get reimbursed for everything—we have been careful to stay at the two less expensive restaurants at the hotel and not order anything too pricey.  And we have been going almost daily to our apartment to take pictures of the progress on repairs.  Currently, there are still tons of dehumidifiers and blowers in it, and all of our stuff has been moved out by a professional moving company.  They have yet to repair the wall, clean the carpets, dry them, and move our stuff back in, so we may be here for a while yet. 

I am in a place full of millionaires, and people keep asking me “Are those your children?”  I know what they mean to ask is whether I am the nanny (maybe I look like the country bumpkin here or something).  They have a family escape center with complimentary activities each day.  Maxwell and I went to one of the activities: we got to go to the kitchens for a free cupcake decorating activity with the pastry chef.  We made the cupcakes in the picture, and we were the only people to show up, so we got to make a bunch!  The kids and I are loving it here.  Chauncey still has to work fulltime, and he just studies for the bar when he gets home, but I am glad to have tons of exciting things to do while he studies! 

Yesterday someone told us at the breakfast buffet “I am so impressed with how loving you are to your children.”  I felt guilty and knew that I didn’t deserve the compliment.  The day before, another person at the restaurant said “Your children are so well-behaved!”  I looked behind me to see if they were talking to someone else.  I am pretty sure no random stranger has ever told me that before because usually one of the three is screaming or picking their nose.  The kids have been really good when we go to the restaurants, probably in part` because they get to eat and drink pretty much anything they want—so we aren’t having the usual complaints and whines during mealtimes.  Usually the only thing random strangers in public tell me is “Wow lady, you really have your hands full, don’t you?”  I have only heard that one once this week, which has got to be some kind of record.  I love it here, and we will never forget the time we got to live in a 5-star resort like millionaires.