First trip. Get the kids up, fed, dressed and head out the door a little early to meet Bou for breakfast. I get there 10 minutes early. Looks good. Lots of parking spots left. Bou calls and says she is bringing her 3 sons. Ahhh, now the entertainment factor has increased. Within that 10 minutes, at least 20 cars arrive and out of the 20 cars, at least 15 of the cars’ occupants go into our Breakfast Restaurant. Oops, now I’m getting worried. Luckily the restaurant had opened the back part of the sitting area and had extra staff. We got seated. Normally an outing like this takes about 45 minutes. Which is just perfect for my young children. Bou’s kids behave great no matter how much time has passed, as we have done this before and I have some background on this. But this time, with all the people, we were there about an hour and 20 minutes. That last 20 minutes was very hard on #1 Son. He wanted to get out and play or do ANYTHING but sit still. Even with Bou’s kids coloring with him and making him laugh… he just wanted down. We survived it. He even went P in the restaurant’s bathroom. That’s a first. Some other time I’ll tell you about a couple of those experiences. Phew. The morning went by and I survived being out on Black Friday.
Second trip. Dad gets home and says something about some specials for the kids Christmas presents. I take a look. Yep, not only is something we want on sale, there is a coupon for another $5 off. Sigh. I do NOT want to go out. But I take a deep breath and tell my Husband, “Let’s Go”. We pack up the kids and head off to the Toy Store and Sears. We go right by the Breakfast Restaurant to get there. #1 Son starts noticing as we get close and says “Bouie, Bouie, Bouie” at the top of his lungs. Dad is cracking up and I’m trying to convince him that we are going to the store, not to see “Bouie”. What really surprised me was it was not that bad. Honestly. There were no lines in either store. Both stores had what we wanted, except for the Toy Store being out of the Hotwheel cars that were on sale.
This does not mean I am going to do this again. For me, this Black Friday was, in fact, not that bad. Phew.
Posted by vw bug at November 27, 2004 03:09 PM | TrackBack