♥ Black Friday!!!

Joe had to work Thanksgiving night and didn't get off until 8 or so on Friday morning. I love going shopping on Black Friday. I usually get to go with my mom and sisters but being so far away that's just not possible. So I braved the stores with 4 kids all by myself. Crazy I know but I came armed and PREPARED!!! If you can even be prepared on such an occasion. What did I bring, you ask???

I wanted to make sure that I had a variety and then something that might last a little while like hard candies... I never realized how quickly they could chomp through hard candy. I didn't bust out the water until the second store and even then I tried to keep it on the low key so they wouldn't need potty brakes! I woke up at 4am and then after I got ready I woke the kids at 4:30am... They usually get up at 6ish anyway so it wasn't a huge deal! We were out of the house at 5:15 and made it to walmart by 5:30. It wasn't too bad either. We were late enough that we didn't get the mad rush of people for the 5 o'clock opening and we weren't so late as to miss the good stuff that was on sale. I love how walmart puts all their sales in the middle of the aisles so it's really easy to find! ShopKo drives me crazy trying to find the deals! I did have to forewarn the kids that we weren't getting anything for them and it was just for cousins... Hopefully it'll still be a surprise in a month and maybe they'll have forgotten most of it... Walmart was the quickest check out ever!!! I was impressed. However ShopKo was a WHOLE different story! It was INSANE! This is a little diagram of how it went. I know it's rough but that's why I'm not a graphic designer or anything high tech!!! I've never weaved so much in my life!

AND I think they did it this way so that you had to look at all their crap as you went through to the check out. We seriously went through over 7 or 8 aisles... There was a guy with a huge amount of balloons to mark the spot for the end of the line and no kidding it was more than double and at the back of the store by the time we got to the front. This was when the goodies really came in handy! Doping my kids up on sugar at 7 in the morning... Good Times! They were surprisingly good, actually. I headed over to ToysRus after that for 2 things and it was going to be QUICK!!! and it would have been, had the line not circled the whole store for checking out. I almost left thinking it wasn't worth it but the line was actually moving pretty dang quick. That was our last and FINAL store! The kids did great although I wouldn't choose to do it this way again unless I absolutely HAD too! We finally got out of ToysRus at 8:30 and then by 8:45 we were FINALLY out of the parking lot. Eliza had her first Dr's appointment for her shot at 9:15 we made there at 9:05! Not bad for Black Friday and all it's craziness! The traffic wasn't too bad. We loved her new Dr and nurse they were so nice and so great with all the kids! After that I got the kids some "real" (non sugar) breakfast, they ate as we drove home. We got home at 10:45 and the kids were in bed by 11 am and asleep very quick!!! They didn't wake up until about 2 which was really nice!

So was it worth it? Heck yeah!!! Although I might have had a different opinion if the kids had been terrible.

And that's my Black Friday excursion! :)