Black Friday Shopping

Yep.  I'm one of those crazies.  My mom, sister and I enjoy going Black Friday shopping together.  We don't go for the "big deals" (although I've gotten a few of those myself).  We go for the adventure.  Believe me - it IS an adventure!  I thought I'd share a little bit about our night last night - and it's killing me that I don't have pictures to share!

Our first stop was Target.  They opened at midnight, we got there shortly before opening.  We talked with folks in line and enjoyed getting ready for the adventure.  Oh - this might be a good point to mention that I wore baby Crum while we shopped - the whole time.  

At midnight the line did NOT start moving.  They had done a fantastic job of splitting the line up into groups of approximately 30 and were planning to let people in every 20 seconds.  It seemed like a reasonable system, so why wasn't it moving? Well - another line had formed in the opposite direction and people were trying to push their way into the store.  The employees waited for police to come and deal with the line-jumpers, before letting everyone in.

It all worked out, we got inside.  This was the most calm Black Friday experience I can recall.  Target in Anderson did a fantastic job preparing for the mad rush.  I purchased 2 seasons of a favorite television show, found pajamas for the kids (Nana buys those for Christmas every year), and we headed out the door.  We then discovered flashing lights - a fire truck and an ambulance.  The rumor is that someone had a seizure in their car - yikes.  Prayers to that person.

We planned to go to Meijer store at 4 - we had a few hours to kill, so we stopped at Walmart.  We roamed the aisles, most of the big shoppers had cleared out already, and the special deals were largely gone.  Not a big deal, my mom and sister each found a couple of items that they thought they needed.

Our final stop of the morning was Meijer store.  They had some nice cast iron dutch ovens that had me drooling.  I was really looking forward to getting one and ditching my old dutch oven.  Before heading inside, I fed Baby Crum for a few minutes and discovered that he had soaked through his cloth diapers (we're having a ton of trouble getting diapers that are tight enough on his legs).  He generally sleeps until about 6, so I hadn't thought to bring a spare - oi.  We went inside, found those way cool dutch ovens, and headed to the diaper aisle.  I picked up diapers and wipes and went to the restroom for changing - problem?  Baby had leaked POO through the leg.  Thanks to some generous friends, we had a Meijer gift card and I was able to send my sister to pick out an outfit for him.

I took his diaper back tot he car, returned to find my family chatting with some of their church friends.  We decided not to get the beautiful dutch ovens - because they were MUCH smaller than we had anticipated - bummer.  I sat down while my family talked... and suddenly was very aware that I felt incredibly sick.  Maybe I was just tired, I tried to convince myself.

An hour before the sale, my mom and sister convinced me to go sleep in the car.  Baby and I headed out of the store. 

NOW

Here's my favorite part of the whole story.

A cowboy stopped me on the way out, he eyed me and said, "Is there a child in there?"  

I nodded and said, "mmmhmm"

"REALLY?"  The cowboy exclaimed.

I replied, "yep" and pulled the sling aside to show him the baby.

His eyes grew wide and the cowboy said, "OH MY".

As I walked away I realized that I had been talking to a cowboy.  How did I know?  This man had been riding the mechanical penny horse and eating a sucker.  Yep.  A full grown man, riding the kids' horse at the store.

Okay, back to the adventure.  Baby and I slept in the car.  Mom and sis came back just after 4.  We headed home.  I laid on my parent's house (my big boys were both in the bed with Mr. Crum).  Within an hour I was up, running.. vomiting.  Yuck.

A rough black Friday with a good start.

Did you have any black Friday adventures?