Arizona here we come!

Brent and I were very lucky to have received a free week in Arizona from our timeshare company. We decided to take advantage and get away for a week before baby number 4 comes. After being married 9 years, we have been able to get away for the occasional overnight stay or the business trip, but we haven't been away for a week since our honeymoon. Needless to say we were very excited.

We left Friday morning and made it to the airport OK, after dropping kids and itineraries off to Grandmas. Our first big adventure was landing in Phoenix. We had bad winds and terrible turbulence. I became extremely sick, and getting off the plane almost passed out. The airline people helped get me a wheelchair and Brent had to wheel me to baggage. Totally embarrassed I just sat there and drank my ginger ale while he found our baggage. We were able to make it out to rent our car, then got extremely lost in Phoenix. We finally made it to our timeshare around 5pm. It wasn't as nice as some of the other places we had stayed at, but still very spacious and open. We decided to head out and get some food, then went back and crashed after our long day of traveling.

Saturday we both woke up at about 6:30 (it's hard to get off of a schedule the first day!) We watched a movie after breakfast and then gradually got ready and headed out. We found this GREAT shopping center that had almost every store I could think of. The center was this beautiful outdoor shopping center with waterfalls, tables, umbrellas, and all sorts of yummy snack places and shops. Almost the whole thing had a 30 ft covered walk way that let the breeze in, but offered great shade. Then at the top were misters that never really got you wet, but kept the whole place cool. Brent and I went to Barnes and Noble and bought the book The Five Love Languages of Children and sat and started reading together.

Shopping center outside Barnes and Noble.

Anyway, on the outside of the shopping center are the great big stores; Target, Office Depot, Petsmart, Joannes, Lane Bryant, etc. Then at the front of the shopping center was every major restaurant you could think of! We went here often to just to relax, have lunch, or walk around.

Around 3, we headed over to listen to some "offer" that we were asked to go to. They gave us a free night in Sedona just to go, so we took it. We were actually glad that we went. NO WE DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING! But we did find out that the time share we purchased has a lot of merit. They wanted us to join a "club" that would allow us to "bank" our time share with them and then trade with others. They had only invited people who owned time shares in areas they coulnd't get into. Anywho, we found out that our time share was worth double in their points system! And man did they want us! The starting buy in was $26,000!!! We of course said no and continued to say no. By the time we were about to leave we had them down to $8000. Needless to say we now know to hold out on any offers in the future (when we aren't living in a trailer...).

We then headed over to Outback (one of Brent's favorite places) and used some gift cards that we have had since Christmas (we don't get out of town much.) We felt pretty good about ourselves knowing the time share we have is a good one and that we weren't manipulated into buying something we couldn't afford. We were also glad that we still have 4 full days of vacation left!!!