The Biggest & Best Shopping Day - Black Friday!

First and foremost, hope everyone had an AWESOME Thanksgiving!  Mines was great.  Spent time with the family at my sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s house.  Regular turkey, deep fried turkey, ham, mac & cheese, mashed potatoes… y’know, the usual Thanksgiving stuff!  Black Friday is somewhat a shopping tradition for us since during Thanksgiving we scope out the newspaper ads and pretty much make a game plan of where we’re going to go.  I actually went to Walgreens early Thanksgiving morning since they were open and picked up a newspaper and some other things since they were open and had a sale!  LOL!

Anyway, our Black Friday adventures began around 11:30pm since the mall opened at 12:00am.  My husband, cousin, brother-in-law and his sister went together and it was CrAzY packed!  The lines to all of the entrances were jam-packed with people!  The Food Court entrance was even more ridiculous since the first 100 people inside would receive a FREE $10 Starbucks gift card!  AND if you spent $100 anywhere in the mall, you’d receive a $50 gift card from the mall!  Not bad, right?!  But read on…  So, our first stop was Radio Shack.  My bro-in-law picked up something worth $100 so he easily was going to get the free mall gift card.  Well, we walked around the mall and it was so busy that it was super hard to shop!  I went into Victoria’s Secret hoping that I could pick up a few things but it was so hot and packed that I couldn’t even walk around!  That was a FAIL!  Then we went to Guest Services to see how my bro-in-law could get his gift card and the line for that was soooooo long that it wasn’t even worth standing in line since we also wanted to go to Toys R Us.  So we left the mall and headed to Toys R Us.  All in all, I think it was more of little kids hanging out than people actually buying things that made the mall so crowded!

So, we drove up and the line to Toys R Us wrapped around towards the back of the store!  My bro-in-law and his sister ended up standing in line while my husband, cousin and I went to scope out Fry’s Electronics to see how the line was.  We had to stop at the bank but on our way there, a pick up truck, with no lights on, came out of a gas station and headed straight towards us!  My husband was driving and was trying to get out of his way since we saw that the cops were trailing behind him.  The thing is, this guy was driving in our lane!  It was super fast that I didn’t even see the truck coming.  We’re fine, though and we think he robbed the gas station since there were cops there too.

But we arrived safely at Fry’s and the line wasn’t too bad.  It wrapped towards the side of the store, but everyone was so spaced out - with their tents, sleeping bags, camp chairs, etc.  So, we brought out our camping chairs, my blanket, and playing cards and set up shop.  It was about 1:00am.  We played cards for a little bit and I ended up falling asleep while the boys talked all night long!  At about 4:00am, the line started to condense since everyone put all of their chairs, tents, etc. back in their cars.  What sucks is people were still sleeping while all of this started happening and they pretty much lost their places in line!!  So we stood in line for about an hour and they let us in at 5:00am.  The boys headed towards the computer section area and I scoped out the Blu-Rays.  Picked up Braveheart since the husband wanted it.  Then went to pick up some DVD+Rs.  The husband purchased some other things for himself and we bought more gifts (can’t say what!), and we were out in about 45 minutes!

Next stop was Target.  My husband found 1 TB external hard drives for about $60 bucks!  Needless to say, my husband, cousin and I picked up one each!  I also picked up Gossip Girl Seasons 1 & 2!  We also picked up a few gifts for our nieces and nephews… Out in about 45 minutes… On to the next!

Acutally, we went home to unload and leave my cousin since he had to work!  My husband and I then went to Best Buy.  I purchased a 19” TV for my mom since that’s what she wanted!  Also, picked up Weeds Seasons 1-4!  I forgot to mention that on Thanksgiving Day, I purchased a digital SLR via the Best Buy website!  I didn’t even have to wait in line!  LOL!

Then we went to Wal-Mart.  Bought more toys for the kiddos and more gifts - can’t say what, though!

On to Cracker Barrel to have breakfast!  The BEST pancakes ever!  We ate and got home at about 1130am!  By then most of the sales were over anyway!  Then we knocked out and slept ‘til 300pm!  Well, I did since my husband slept waaaay longer!  I wrapped all of the presents already - I love wrapping presents!

At about 700pm, my husband and I went out again to Bed, Bath & Beyond since I needed to buy coffee for our Keurig coffee maker and I had a coupon for $5 off!  Then we went to Old Navy and bought some gifts.  Then we went to another Wal-Mart and pretty much called it a day after that!

Phew!  What a long post!  But it was a great day!  Despite the fact that I had to work “on-call” for about 6 hours (Thank goodness I didn’t get called in!) and almost got into a nasty car accident!  We got what we wanted and no fights!  LOL!  I think it was pretty mellow and not so intense since we didn’t want the big ticket items that everyone else was after like laptops, computers, the big TVs, etc.  Sales are going on right now so I’m going to get off the computer and get ready!!!  Bye everyone!

Happy SHOPPING!

♥ R