The Howard Family: Friday the 13th Austin Date: Horrible Start; Great Redemption!

Most people know this but Sonny and I love date nights- they are refreshing, encouraging, relaxing and they give us a nice little break from the sometimes crazy life with 2 little ones. At the end of last summer, we went to Galveston for the weekend and got suckered into one of those Timeshare scams. We were promised that if we just went and LISTENED we would come away with a 2 night luxury stay in Austin and a 3 night, 4 day cruise to the Bahamas. The deal sounded good enough so we endure the 2 hour lecture on a Timeshare and "painfully" declined their offer to give them $15,000 (I say painfully because it was so awkward to have them try every sales pitch they could think of when we knew from the beginning that we would not be buying no matter how "great" the deal might look).

All that to say, we left the timeshare presentation with a packet of instructions on how to claim our prizes. I figured this might be the case- they made it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to go through all of the steps to claim the prizes. I had to call this person at this specific time and wait for this email, then send a check (they would not take a card or let you pay online- only a mailed check would do), then wait for that to be processed, then submit 3 dates that were 30 days apart that would work for us, then wait for them to check the availability of those dates, then finally we reached out "luxury get-away" in Austin...

Yes, these are ACTUAL pictures I took of the "4- Star" hotel we were promised!!!

This was the view driving up to our room...

The view from the porch of our room...

A close up of the green, moldy hot tub...

Needless to say, the moment we walked in we started making plans for another place to stay. Since we were already in Austin and had the kids with their grandparents, we decided to continue our little get-away but NOT in this place and NOT on Friday the 13th. Sonny was sure that we would end up dead if we stayed in this place. When we had walked into the lobby, the whole place was empty. We were the only guests there and there was only one light on- the one at the front desk. The old restaurant next to the lobby was dark, dreary and empty and looked like it had not been occupied in some time. The hallway leading to our room smelled like musky smoke mixed with body odor- as did our room. It was AWFUL! Thankfully we have wonderful friends that live in Austin- thank you Anneke and Michael for letting us stay with you the first night of our trip!

Anneke and me being silly after a long day! She has been one of my best friends for about 12 years. She is really a sister to me and I love whenever we get to hang out and catch up. It stinks living in 2 different cities but it does make us cherish our time together =)

Anneke and her hubby Michael... =)

Anneke and me at dinner- eating wonderful Italian food in Austin!! Yummy!!

Sonny and I at our dinner with Michael and Anneke at Botechelli's...

On the second night we decided to stay at the wonderful Omni Hotel since the trip was supposed to be celebrating our anniversary. Our room at the Omni was awesome! We have never had a bad Omni experience. We got to rest so much and just enjoy each other's company.

Here I am with all of my snacks!! We decided to skip lunch and just snack in our room... My snacks are Cherry Essence Prunes, peanuts, and Lindor truffles!! Yummy!!