I GOT THE LAST ONE!!!

Black Friday is something that my sister and I have come to LOVE doing together!! We've gone together every year since we moved back from Michigan (I think 5 yrs). Each year we get more and more efficient and strategic! This year we were pretty organized but we still have a couple of tricks up our sleeves for next year! Planning for this day started several weeks before BF. There are a couple of websites that post sneak peaks of the BF ads - we like to use this one. You can peruse the items and add them to a 'shopping list' and they will categorize them under the different stores. Unfortunately, this year we did not have easy access to printer so we had to write everything down. That is something we will do different next year! We also like to ad match at Wal-Mart! I LOVE their ad match policy!!!! We are able to skip entire stores sometimes just by ad matching at Wal-Mart!! Next year, though, we will make a specific list of items that will be ad-matched. We didn't do that this year and forgot a couple of things and had to go back later! So, we're getting better every year! Also, next year we will use 2-way radios. The cell phones take too long!! So, our adventure really got into motion on Thanksgiving afternoon when we pulled out all of the paper ads to go over them again and again. Here's a picture of Terra all engrossed in this addiction!! A lot of the ads that we had were for days prior to BF so we just threw those on the floor where our daughters got in on some of the action!!! The next day we were up by 3 A.M. We had to drive 30 minutes to Fort Smith where all of the stores were (that will change next year also - we're moving to F.S.!). And, we had to be to Kohl's at 4 A.M. They had a KitchenAid Stand Mixer on sale for $129. I had been waiting a long time to get one of these and this is one of the best deals that I had ever seen! Merry Christmas to me!! They had a few other things we wanted so my sister (8 months pregnant) and Aspen (my new partner in crime) went and got in line to check out while I ran and got the items we were looking for! As I was walking... quickly to the mixers, I heard someone behind me say "Man, she's serious!!". I think I saw that same person 100 people out in the checkout line while I was the 3rd or 4th person checking out!! We were literally in & out in less than 10 minutes!! Next we went to Wal-Mart where the sale started at 5 A.M. so we were about 45 minutes early. This was fine with us. We walked around the store to find where the stuff was that we wanted and then got in line for the more popular stuff. We did some damage there!! We had to drive to Fayetteville to get to a Target (Fort Smith is building a Target so next year there will be no more driving to Fayetteville!) and we hit the Toys-R-Us there along with several other stores and then we headed home! We were shopping, eating, and driving for a total of 16 hours!! Wow, what a rush!! Both Terra and Aspen were such troopers! It's only once a year so I think it's worth it! Obviously, Terra does too because I don't have to twist her arm one bit to go with me!! Oh yeah, I almost forgot! The reason for the title of this post!! "I got the last one!" This became a running joke for us. Once we got a couple of hours into our shopping, it became more of a challenge to find some of things we were looking for. Several times we would pick up an item and exclaim "I got the last one!!" Only to find that exact same item 30 minutes later in a totally different place!! We just had to laugh. It happened to my sister-in-law, too. She got to Target before us and my sister wanted a wagon that they had on sale so Terra asked her to get it for her. She called once she got in and told Terra that they were out and then called a few minutes later and said that she found 'the last one'! When we got there a couple of hours later we found about 8-10 stacked up by ladies underwear! This was something that happened to us several times that day so we had a good laugh out of it!!! Here are couple pictures of what my dad's truck looked like when we were done:

Note: Names of specific items bought were purposefully left out due to the fact that my husband, children, and other family & friends read this blog and would thus find out what they were getting for Christmas!! :)