Black Friday.... dare I say I went?!

Thursday afternoon, I discussed going shopping with a few of the ladies of the Eddy family. There were a few things in the sale ads that I thought I'd try to get, but I wasn't bound and determined that I had to go. I'm a girl that's all about shopping, but before daylight? Is that even a reasonable thought, especially for a mother of a three year old, and 6 months pregnant with baby number 2? I debated Thursday night, to go or not to go. I asked Travis, "what should I do?" His response, "what time do you need to leave?" "I will be leaving at 3:15!" "ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

I thought, and pondered, and thought some more. I wanted to go, but wow! 2:30 sure would come early!! I called Dee & Kati to let them know I'd go. I mean what is one day of sleep, right? The plan ended up being that I would meet Dee and go to Fernandina with her and her daughter Stephanie, and Kati would meet us later. Dee said she needed to be to Stephanie's by 4:00, not a minute later. There was something Stephanie wanted at K-Mart so we had to be there in plenty of time, they were to open at 5:00.

I tried sleeping. I was like a crazy person, still trying to decide what in the heck I was thinking by agreeing that I would be up by 2:30 to go to KMART?! Not to mention this lovely sinus/cold junk I have going on. If I did close my eyes, I couldn't breathe, so I tossed and turned and maybe got a total of 2 hours of sleep that night. Finally at 2:25, I said, enough. Just get up, make some coffee and get ready. Maybe the coffee would jump start me, nope didn't work at all! I know that Dee is always on time, and an early riser so I wanted to be on time, and not make her wait for me.

I drink one cup of coffee, and poured the second into a travel mug and out the door I went. The dogs scurried off the porch as if the house were on fire. They had not seen the likes of me at that time of the morning in, well, forever! I drove to Winn Dixie to meet Dee, it was 3:10 when I pulled out of the driveway. Again, what in heavens name was I thinking? I pulled in the good 'ole WD parking lot, no signs of Dee anywhere. I was shocked, and surprised that I beat her there. I waited. Waited, and waited. Finally at 3:38, I decided to call her because maybe I misunderstood the time I was supposed to meet her. Maybe I was supposed to be there at 3:00 instead of 3:15! I sent her a text message and she called right back and informed me she was, "sipping coffee!" She said she would be there in ten minutes.

Sure enough, ten minutes later she arrived. We were off. Both of us laughing at how crazy we must be to be on the road at 3:50 in the morning to go shopping. We picked Stephanie up and headed to Fernandina. K-Mart was to be our first stop. We passed the 24 hour Wal-Mart in Yulee, but we were on a mission..... K-Mart it was. We pulled in the K-Mart parking lot, and it was a complete and total ghost town!!! Where are all the people that should be waiting in line? As we turned in, Stephanie pulled the sales paper off the dash and said, "Umm, what?! They don't open until 6:00!" All three of us had looked at that ad numerous times and how on earth we thought they were to open at 5:00 beats me! We decided we'd go to the Wal-Mart in Fernandina, since they WERE to open at 5:00.

We parked, pretty close I might add, and got inline with all the other anxious shoppers. We were probably the 50th ones in line. Not to bad, I thought... since I'd never waited outside a store to buy something. We had ourselves about a 25 minute wait. The doors finally opened and people stormed to the most desired department... Electronics! Stephanie found the GPS she was wanting, I found numerous movies and toys for Carter and the cutest pj's. All three of us were shocked at the limited number of people, and how we really didn't see any rudeness of any sort. Most of all we were shocked, that we didn't wait in line!!!

Off to Target we went. I had to pull in at Chick-fila though to get me some of their tasty little chicken biscuits. I was starving by this point. We entered Target, and to much surprise it really wasn't that crowded either. I mean it was a little grid lock in the toy department, but nothing that you couldn't handle. Thus far, I was pretty impressed with my shopping adventure that started at 3:00 that morning! :) Our cart was loaded down. My stuff, Dee's stuff, and Stephaine's stuff, and don't let me forget to mention Stephanie's three year old Tyler was in there somewhere! Yes, we took a three year old with us shopping and I have to give that little guy credit, he did an awesome job! Another shocker... no waiting in line at Target eitehr!

After leaving Target, we dropped Stephanie and Tyler off at their house. Dee and I were just getting started. We hopped on I-95 and off to the airport shopping center we went. Michaels was our destination. Dee was on a Christmas tree hunt. She found "the one" but just to be sure, we ran across the parking lot to Wal-Mart (for the second time that morning) to make sure they didn't have a tree she liked better. Both of us loaded down another cart in Wal-Mart. Then it was back to Michaels to get her tree. We laughed at how loaded down my Expedition was at this point, and it was only 9:00 in the morning! We left the airport, headed to the Orange Park Mall. Neither of us really sure what to expect when we got there, except major chaos! That was not the case. As we pulled in on the Wells Road side of Sears, we drove towards the doors and low and behold there was a up front parking spot just for us! This has never happened to me on a shopping day like today! We entered Sears, and although their parking lot was not full there store looked like an ant farm. There were people, EVERYWHERE! Our goal in this store was a GPS for Papa Cotton. We went upstairs to electronics and I think that was the V.I.P area of the ant farm. Those people were in every area you could see. Fortunately we walked right to a sales associate and told him what we wanted. He said they had them in stock, that I could pay for it and go downstairs to pick it up. It was all of 5 minutes in the store and my mission was complete! We were both in disbelief!!!!!

We decided to venture through the mall, towards JCPenney. Once inside JCP, we found another ant farm. This one however looked like a three year old had gotten ahold of it and shook it for about 5 minutes. Clothes, shoes, you name it were scattered everywhere. It honestly looked like a tornado had blown through the store. Dee's mission: to find her a new coat! We walked straight to that department and she got the last one on the shelf, lucky girl!! We visited each department, and once our arms were full it was time for us to hit the road. We had all intentions to go to Christmas made in the South, but our feet and my aching, 6 month pregnant back, were not going to allow it! We slowly walked to the car because we were exhausted. We made it home around 12:45ish and both of us put a very good dent in our Christmas lists. I have four people yet to buy for, but everyone else were knocked out on the dreaded BLACK FRIDAY!

All in all, we had a good trip. An enjoyable time, and I'm not sure about Dee but I think the two of us should make it a tradition. We shop the same, focused and on a mission! Until next year, happy shopping and get the best buys!!!!! :) :)

Oh, I might add that when I got home Travis had worn little Carter out and it took all of about an hour to get him to take a nap with me. Two and half hours later he and I walked out on to the front porch to find Travis with his shotgun in hand, shooting birds.... again! :)