Rachel was able to get the 411 to book a different hotel in the area.  I hope that hers turned out okay, but we head back to the smoke

palace and have more drinks and snacks.  I do bring back febreeze today, but that is no match for this place.  The kids wants to stay at the hotel and John stays with them, while Jose, Steph, Dave, Mark and I head to Alie's  for Lebanese food.  We decide to get the family feast for 4-6 people and end up with so much food, that we could feed a family of 12.  It was

delicious and nice, and we took 8 boxes of food back to the smoke palace, to set in all the different refrigerators.  Everyone is up earlier than the time when we planned to go to breakfast because I think we are done with this place.  There's a couple having a fight in between two of the rooms and everyone is interested in who's baby it is and what's going to happen....or worried that we

going to be present for domestic violence...For a place we hated, we spent a lot of time in the room hanging out.  There wasn't a dull moment I have to say.  Things are loaded in different cars and the boys are going home in one car, while the girls get their Moroccan Baths and shopping in the second car.  Ice bags and biofreeze are purchased for the food

and for Mark’s back which has gone out.  If that’s all that we’re bringing home from this place, I guess we should be happy.  Oscar didn’t sleep well the first night because he was in the car when we checked the beds for bedbugs and squirmed and wiggled, scratched, and whined until he asked me about that.  He’s used to seeing us come in to any hotel room and do our usual safety

    checks, especially with COVID, and he missed this one….I didn’t know that he was even paying that much attention to the fact that we were doing these things.  We hit The Pantry again, because why mess with perfection and everyone orders something different.  John one ups me with a bacon and pecan waffle put together and I find out that their eggs are as good as their baked goods.  The ladies got to go to Paradise city Salon for our baths.  Viktoria sat in the waiting room while Steph got her bath and facial and I did a bath.  Love that experience !!! I’m on a quest to find all the places in the US where I can get a Turkish Bath.  Steph loves the experience too and we head to the outlets in Howell for shopping.  We are able to convince a 15 year old to buy some appropriate clothes for school this fall.  It takes a lot of changes of different things, but we finally have the beginnings or a mix and match wardrobe that Viktoria and Stephanie are both pretty happy with.  We stop to eat in Lansing at Brava Italian Kitchen and I get a sausage tortellini that is inedible due to spice that shuts my throat down.  They bring me something different and it’s boring and bland and not due to the spice of the last dish, just blah.  Vikotria and Steph like their food though and we are fast to get out of the place because Mark has had to go to the ER for his back.  So, we hightail it home from there and thus ends a very up and down small trip.  It definitely has its highs (Van Gogh, karting, good friends, bath) and lows (that freaking hotel). So, a lot  of highs and only a really shitty hotel that I’m still bitter about.