Day 3

It is a good thing the kids did not have to start school today. The hotel fire alarms went of at 3:30 am. At first I did not understand why there was a strange noise going off in our room. However, after about 2 minutes of continuous noise I figured out what was going on. I sat up in bed and spent the next minute hoping that the alarm would go off and we would be able to go back to sleep. Alyssa and Nathan woke up and immediately wanted to know why we were still inside the building. At this point, Dale and I figured it was silly to risk staying any longer and we threw on some shoes, grabbed our jackets, our bag with our passports and a blanket to wrap up the kids and headed outside. The parking lot was full of people, some in the hotel bathrobes. Everyone was staring blankly into the dark night air. We headed for our car at the back of the lot so that the kids would have a place to sit down. The fire department showed up 5 minutes later. Nathan was ecstatic about the chain of events and was hoping that they firefighters would be able to use their ladder. The fire alarm shut off about 10 minutes later and we were allowed back into the building. We climbed back in bed and I was just starting to doze off, when the alarms went off again. “This cannot be happening,” I thought. The kids jumped out of bed, threw on their shoes and were ready to head out the door immediately. Nathan was acting as if saw flames, so out we headed for the second time. Once again the fire department appeared in their yellow and orange checked truck. The alarm lasted about 15 minutes, turned off and we were allowed in again. This time the hotel staff was out taking room numbers down and letting us know that there was a malfunction in the fire alarm system. He told us that it was very likely that this would happen again and that we were to evacuate the building as usual. On cue, after getting back in bed, the alarm sounded again. This time Dale stood on the bed and held a pillow over the alarm in the room. This made the noise in the room much more tolerable, but we still had to figure out if we were going to leave for the third time. Then, for some reason, the alarm in our room turned off, but the one in the hall still sounded. The kids had fallen asleep almost instantly when we returned to bed the second time, were sleepily asking if we had to leave again. We waited in the room hoping the alarm would go off. The fire truck arrived out front in record time most likely because it had not gotten back to the firehouse yet. I pleaded silently to the alarm system hoping it would turn itself off. Suddenly, there was silence. I quietly exhaled a breath of relief. The kids were quiet and laid there waiting for the alarm to go off again. We woke up with 15 minutes left for breakfast and once again dashed down the hallway to grab something to eat.