I Heart Black Friday

A bit of an overview on my break so far:

Wednesday - My flights home were both pretty uneventful, as was the drive to Brainerd. We went to the Thanksgiving Eve service at Lakewood, and then Abby and I went with a bunch of people to Deja Vu. I had heard of, but not seen any real previews for, this film, so that was kind of fun to have no idea what the movie was about going in. Overall, a decent movie, worth the $7 it costs here, not sure I would pay $9 in Nashville though.

Thursday - I was able to sleep in until 9:15, when Abby was yelling for me to wake up from upstairs. We played a game of Spades before heading down to my cousins' place, a bit over 2 hours southeast of home. We were there before everyone else, and since it was so nice (over 50 anyway), we played Pounce/Nerts on their deck for an hour. We all got a little cold, so we retired to the basement to play DDR. Now I'm decent enough at DDR, and can rock it up on light mode. My cousins, on the other hand, are ridiculous. They were getting perfect scores on heavy mode. I would need to practice for quite a long time before I could be decent at standard, let alone heavy. A little humbling, not gonna lie. It was still fun though, and that's all I care about.

The rest of the family began arriving shortly after we finished, and the rest of the day was kind of a blur. I know it involved some good food, and I remember something about a bunch of first graders running around and piling on top of me, Abby, and Jess.

Friday - This day began at 4:45. It's become a bit of a family tradition to go shopping early on Black Friday, and we have perfected our system. We began at Best Buy, where apparently people had begun waiting in line at 3 PM the previous day. When we enter the store, Sarah automatically gets in line, which is already 30-40 people deep. Abby and I fan out in the store at this point, searching for the cheap DVDs we are looking for. This year we had the added bonus of Sarah's boyfriend John. He was looking for a microwave, and we lost him early on in the process. By the time Abby and I were ready to go, Sarah was at the front of the line, but John was nowhere to be seen. We searched around for a bit, and he eventually appeared out of the mass and started making his way up to Sarah's spot in line. This seemed to piss off a bunch of people in line, and probably rightfully so, but it doesn't really matter, because he got to her and they checked out. We were in and out of there in roughly 15 minutes, not bad at all.

Next up was Wal-Mart. Abby and I were the only ones who wanted anything there, so we walked around and Sarah and John went over to Kohls. The search for cheap DVDs in Wal-Mart seemed to be going nowhere; we looked in every potential place that they would normally put cheap movies and found nothing. As we were about to give up, Abby found an employee map of the store and we realized where the DVDs were: Frozen foods. I don't know why we didn't think to look there first, but we headed over and, sure enough, that's what we found. We picked through them, then got out of there.

By now it was 5:50 (we wasted far too much time at Wal-Mart). Abby needed to get some sleep before basketball practice, so she dropped me of at Kohls, where Sarah and John were waiting in line. That line took about 20 minutes to get through, so Target had been open for 20 minutes before we finally got there. I walked straight to the movies and picked up a few great deals, then found the couple finding toys for John's nieces and nephews. Checkout lines at Target were relatively short, and we got out of there by 7.

Next up was a quick stop at Fleet Farm, where I bought a Lasso Golf set (Polish Lawn Darts). I'm hoping it will fit in my luggage so I can bring it back with me now. After Fleet, we moved to Herbergers, where Sarah was going to get me part of my Christmas present, a 4-piece Pyrex bakeware set. Instead, we left with two 19-piece Pyrex sets, which we will be giving each other on Christmas. Then we met my parents at Burger King for a nice break of Croissan'wichs and bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits.

Having already shopped for 3 hours, we headed home to get ready for the day. I took a shower, and then my mom and I headed back to Herbergers around 9. I got my hair cut at 10 (much needed), and then we went back to Herbergers and hit the rest of the mall, followed by stops at Kohls, Bethany Bookstore, and the bank. We finally got back to the house at 12:30.

In the 3 hours since, I had lunch and went back to Target to get a few more gifts. At this point, I am finished with Sarah and Katie, and need to pick up a few more things for Abby and my parents. Beyond Lasso Golf, I got the following items for myself:

The Simpsons Season 5 ($16)
Friends Season 1 (14.99)
Friends Season 2 (14.88)
Arrested Development Season 3 (9.99)
You've Got Mail (3.88)
Dumb and Dumber (3.88)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (3.44)

So not a bad deal on the whole. My shopping is not complete, for sure not for presents, and possibly not for myself. I guess we'll find out.