The Golden Girl

Today is Hannah's Golden Birthday!  It started with gold balloons hanging from her doorway and a gold (butterfinger) donut.  After school tonight we will start picking up her friends and we will be off for her hotel Birthday party.

We arrived to the hotel around 5:30.  When the girls walked in they were in awe of this place and so excited for their night!  Embassy Suites Hotel in downtown St Paul is one of my favorite hotels.  My childhood best friend, Vickey Novak, would have her birthday party here every year.  I have had so many fun nights and memories here.  When Hannah and I were talking about ideas for her party I mentioned to Hannah how fun those hotel parties used to be and right away she was interested.  

She wanted to go to the same hotel and do some of the same things.  

 Elevator tag, happy hour, movies, swimming, breakfast in the 'outside/inside' and lots of laughs.

We ordered pizza and made our way to the hotel happy hour for a few snacks and sodas.  While we were finishing up we saw a pizza guy get into the other banks of elevators and the race was on.  The girls were so freaked out that he would try to deliver the pizza and we wouldn't be there.  Luckily his elevator stopped a few times and we were unlocking the door as he approached.
We ate dinner and opened presents and then the girls needed to go swimming.

Hannah and Sam met in Kindergarten.  They have been friends ever since.  They go to Adventures Plus together but haven't been in the same class again since Kindergarten.

Hannah and Mira became good friends last year while in Mrs Dau's class together.  They are also in Adventures Plus together and do not have the same teacher this year.

Sara moved this summer and now goes to school in Maple Grove.  When Hannah was planning her party there was no question that she wanted Sara there.  Even though they hadn't talked since she left at the end of the school year.  I love how kids want to keep those friendships and connections.  And I love even more how Sara was picked up and all of the girls treated her like they had just seen her at school that day.  

Kaitlyn and Hannah have started to become pretty close.  Kaitlyn has two other sisters (one Hailey's age, Becca) and all 5 girls are friends.  Kaitlyn is also at Adventures Plus.  

After swimming we went back to the room where the girls had cake, made cards with some scrapbooking stuff I brought and played a little elevator tag.  I let them go out into the hallways alone to explore.  That's the beauty of glass elevators and a view to the hallways :-)  

I watched them the whole time but they didn't know that. 

One thing that I always thought was so cool at the hotel was that there were two 'rooms' in the hotel.  The living room area with the pull out couch and the bedroom- separated by a door.

The girls also thought this was pretty cool that they had their own 'place'.

They sat around giggling and watching TV until they finally crashed.

We had breakfast at the hotel and then proceeded to do some more swimming before it was finally time to checkout.  On the way out the guy at the front desk, who happened to be the same guy that checked us in, asked the girls how their night was.  He then took them over to the hotel store and let them pick out anything they wanted.  What a GREAT way to top off their fun time!

(thankfully each of the girls picked a straight up Hershey chocolate bar and not an ice cream bar)