Oh What a Day!!

 WARNING!! LONG POST AHEAD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION, but PLEASE proceed

 How many of you hit the sales yesterday? Did you get what you wanted? I'd love to hear your BF traditions. We have been going for the last, oh, I don't know how many years. It started out with hubby and I going just to see what all the hoopla was. We loved watching all the crazy people. We began going after that first year. Not every year, but somewhat regularly and we didn't necessarily buy things. We did come to the conclusion that unless you are going for those "Early Bird deals", the sales are nothing spectacular and we'll see the same sales in a few weeks.

 Playing cards outside the store at 4:00 in the morning.

It used to be that we just went by ourselves and the girls stayed home with a sitter (who spent the night) or went to grandmas. A few years ago Kat began going with a friend of hers and so hubby and I let Nan have a friend spend the night and they would go with us. I know, many of you go without your kids, but our kids actually love to go. It does make it tricky to Christmas shop but we've figured it out. Often the things we're looking for to buy our girls aren't on sale for a crazy price, so we wait till later. 


For the last two year Kat has gone with us and we still have Nan's friend go. This year Nan invited two friends and Kat one friend and hubby stayed home. The girls had gone through the newspaper ads and found the places they wanted to go, things they wanted to buy and some ideas of things they wanted for Christmas. Can I just say that honestly if they had wanted to stay home I would've gladly obliged. I'm not a die hard and would have loved to sleep in. Nan was also in need of some clothes so the hope was that we'd find some good things for her. Hubby had our $$ figured out so I knew how much we had to spend on each girl and himself and also how much the girls had to spend on others. They also used some of their own money for some friends. On the way home Kat commented this.."I'm so glad dad is the way he is with our money because if he wasn't I don't think I'd be as organized as I am", and she proceeded to tell me how happy she was with how she had spent her money.



We tried to go to be early on Thursday night, but it wasn't till 10 for the girls and 11:00/12:00 for me. 2:15 came around way too soon. We were out of the house by 3:15. I made the girls some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins the night before to bring with us and they made hot chocolate and put them in lidded coffee cups to take. We were set. Our first stop was Sports Authority (they offer cash cards to the first 85 customers). I landed a $25 card. I left the store with a $50 pair of books and only paid $4.99. Works for me!! We also hit Kohls, Fred Meyers, Walmart, Sears, Penneys, Macy's and a few others. The girls scored some great deals as well.

 We stopped at Taco Bell and Burgerville to eat and were home by 1:00. We emptied the van, cleaned it out, put things away. The girls made a fun video, then made popcorn crowns while watching a movie.

 They also wanted to make a recipe that I had found here. On more than one occasion I said to myself, "am I crazy? We have been functioning on little sleep all day, why aren't we taking naps, doing nothing?" Of course the answer was that no one wanted to take naps. I also had to apologize on more than one occasion for being a bit "short" with the girls.

After friends left I made some quick Sloppy Joes and Yukon Gold Medallions for dinner. I'll share recipes later. The day ended well with everyone heading to bed by 9:00.
 
Oh, and Thanksgiving? A very nice day. Yummy food, great friends, games played and nice conversation. I have a few recipes to share later. My MIL is wonderful about inviting people who have nowhere to go, so we had a full house.  

I have a few recipes I want to share and maybe I'll do that while we're on vacation. 


With Joy UNquenchable,