Black Friday!!

My sister & I started a tradition of going shopping on Black Friday a few years ago.  I had my son on Black Friday, and we started the next year (2006) by shopping for his birthday presents.  We start at Wal-Mart then go to Starbuck's & Waffle House.  From there we go where we feel like.  We have fun & usually it starts at 4 or 5am and we're gone for hours.

This year was a little different.  Wal-Mart started at midnight & C decided to go with us.  So, we'd had very little sleep the night before Thanksgiving and no sleep before the black friday shopping started.  We get to Wal-Mart at 11:15pm-ish and the parking lot is PACKED.  Since it usually starts at 5 there's very little people there, but NOT this time.  We had an agenda, but the store wasn't mapped out well enough.  My son has wanted some Zhu Zhu pets since Nickelodeon airs the commercials nonstop.  They had them for $4, but with so many people around I gave up.  I had C go to the $4 boys pajama's and luckily he ended up getting like 4-5 sets which is awesome.  Hunter LOVES his pajama's.  I didn't really see any other toys that I liked, so I went for the $1.33 towels.  Lets just say that when we heard the ripping of the shrink wrap that the ladies in front of me had them in the air filling their carts.  I ended up with 5 blue & 4 cream colored ones......there were more on the pallet.  My sister stood near the Iron Man toy & with nobody else around she got one then ran to the Zhu Zhu pets and grabbed 2......those were his birthday presents from her.  I had found some toys in the toy department, but put them back when I saw the $15 Lego bucket and nabbed that for Hunter as well.  That finished our shopping there, so we go to check out.  I think it was the ONLY time I've EVER seen all the registers opened, though I think they had the self checkout closed.  The lady in line behind us was trying to run us over while in line which was stupid.  We paid for our stuff & as we were getting close to her car we spot some guy yelling very loudly at his kids to get out of the car.  I was about to go off on him, but for fear of getting shot decided against it.  My sister was going to to grab his cane & beat him with it.  Just rudeness.  WHY WOULD ANYONE TAKE THEIR KIDS OUT THAT LATE TO SHOP???  We saw that problem all night/morning.

The next store, Kohl's didn't open until 3am, so we had some time to kill.  We ventured over to Waffle House.  I wasn't too hungry and didn't want to fill up making myself sleepy, so I just had hashbrowns.  OMG, those were the BEST hashbrowns I've EVER had at a Waffle House.  I was in LOVE.  I even had to make a facebook status about it.  The waitress sucked, but the food made up for it.  

Off to Kohl's we went after we ate......we get there around 1:24am.  I'm glad we got there when we did because there weren't too many people, YET.  We had some ladies in line around us who we chatted with for an hour & a half.  The line ended up somewhere behind the building with people STILL walking up at 3am.  We went there b/c my sister wanted a peacoat that was normally like $170 and was on sale for $50.  She got the last one in her size.  I looked in the ad & we decided to grab the $9.99 waffle maker (found out at checkout that the price was AFTER a $10 rebate but we got it anyway), I wanted the $4.99 Food Network reusable coffee tumbler (it looks like a coffee cup from Starbuck's), and Colby found a Smurf's snuggie for himself to open at Christmas.  We were close to $50 at checkout and I made him grab a book for Hunter so we could get a $10 Kohl's cash coupon.  We were in & out of there in like 10-15 minutes.  

From there we went to the gas station to get free coffee & use the restroom.  Target was to open at 4am and when we got there the line was wrapped around the building...it was LOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG.  We actually walked to the back and decided to leave because we really didn't need anything there.  So, we went across the road to Ulta which didn't open until 6am.  We were told that Bath & Body Works opened at 4 so we walked across from there, but saw the sign at the door that said 5am.  We camped out and waited.  I wanted to get some 5 for $5 hand sanitizers for my purse & my sister wanted the buy 3 get 3 free signature collection deal.  More entertainment came from the ladies in line with us.  Not to mention a guy I saw walk by that had a baseball cap, sleeveless t-shirt, shorts, and girly/slouchy cowboy boots.  He walked by too fast for my phone to snap a good pic.  I grabbed what I needed then walked across the way to stand at Ulta (I was first in line at both).  What cracked me up was the fact that ALL the lights were on, nobody walking in the store, me sitting on the ground outside the door, & people STILL trying to go in.  Then they asked me if they were open yet.  When I said no they asked when it opened.  I wanted to tell them how stupid they were & that they needed to learn to read.  The sign with the hours was on the door right in front of their face.  The worst were those who read the sign then asked me the same questions.  It started to rain & we were under an awning, but I hadn't pee'd in 12 hours.  So once the doors opened I ran to the bathroom.  While sitting & waiting I saw a Revlon 1" flat iron for $9.99 (I need a smaller one, mine is 2") I'm liking it so far.  I also wanted to get some NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil's & they had NYX buy one get one half off.  I grabbed 4 but prolly should've grabbed a white one.  I got Black Bean, Dark Brown, Rocky Mountain Green (for Christmas & St. Paddy's), and Rust (it's a dark red color for Christmas or UGA games).  I'm wearing the Black Bean & Rust right now and LOVE them.  I'm wishing I'd grabbed the Milk (white) one to use as a base for when I attempt to use bold/bright colors.  

By the time we got done there it was time to get back to my son before my folks had to go to work.  My sister woke him up to give him his birthday presents.  He LOVED them.  I passed out on the couch for a few hours then showered & we came home.  Fortunately there was hardly any traffic and since it was around 3pm no traffic on the interstate at the mall by my house.  Overall we got the things we went for and a few more.  I just wish I'd seen better deals.  Not to mention that I wish the stores hadn't staggered their openings so far apart.  I'm glad we had fun & luckily didn't see any fights or anything.  I'll be doing a blog later or tomorrow on some eye make-up removers, but wanted to share my experience.

TOODLES Y'ALL!!