Who beat Black Friday?

Yep....that's right....yours truly! I conquered Black Friday! I set out to get one thing and GOT it (plus a little more but we won't talk about that)! Being a black friday virgin, I had no idea what the rules were. 4 trips later and not much sleep...it was completely worth it...and I even had fun!

K, so here's what happened. On my wish list was the Kitchenaid mixer. I've wanted it for a long time but never could justify spending minimum $200 on a single kitchen item. Granted, it is a staple piece and they last forever, blah blah blah. But on one income you can find a way around it. Last year, when CeCe was just 4 days old, I was able to talk Josh into making the trip at 5am to try to get it to no avail. This year, I was determined! Wal-mart had it on sale for $139.

Trip 1: 8pm - Went to get some groceries and to get the scoop on how this all works. Didn't really find out much except that they would be passing out maps of where the sale items would be in the store at 10pm.

Trip 2: 9:45pm - On my way to get THE map! When I got there, they weren't finished printing them off yet so I waited with about 30 other people who were there for the same reason. I met a mother-daughter team who were pros and knew all of the ins and outs. While chatting with them, we realize that THE map was the same map that was already posted online and only showed a few of the hot items - tv's and laptops. So this wasn't going to help me much. Although lines weren't supposed to be formed until midnight, they went ahead and marked their spot. I was able to work it out so that they would call me if they knew more about where the mixer's spot was going to be and a good time to come based on the crowd. So I headed home planning to sleep a little before my wake up call!

Trip 3: 1:30am - My new black friday friend (bff), Kay, called me to let me know that the mixer was actually on the all day Friday sale list (instead of 5-11am) and they started to roll those out at midnight. She was able to snatch me one until I got there! So I got there, and surprisingly the parking lot was still pretty empty. [I'm generally not good at judging the amount of people in crowds but I'm gonna venture to say that at most there were 100 people in the store.] Hardly anybody. I picked up the mixer from my bff, then decided to check out what else was already available. I walked around for a bit then checked out...mixer in hand! Quick and easy! YAY!

Trip 4: 4:45am - I got home from the previous trip around 3:30am and couldn't fall asleep. Josh had woken up at this point and we were just laying there wide awake. 4:30am rolls around and I thought, maybe I'll go back up there to check out what all this hype is about. WHOA! In the hour or so I was gone, the gates opened and the flood came! It was completely packed. I strolled in because, no pressure, I had already won! There were lines formed all around the store at each item, cops standing by the bigger ones, and people with their hands on their item waiting for the clock to turn to 5am. It was crrrrazzy! People were grabbing anything and everything, even if they didn't want it, just to make sure they did have it in case they changed their minds later. This was apparent because after the madness died down, the 'throw back' items people had time to think about and decide against were in random spots all throughout the store. I picked up a couple more things and headed to the check out line. It was long but no big deal, I just chatted with the other people in line and it went by pretty fast.

I headed home and just as I lay my head down, my well rested, full of energy, sweet daughter woke up ready for the day at 6:45am. Luckily Josh didn't have to be at work until 9 so I was able to sleep in a little bit.

All in all, it was a lot of fun! I don't look forward to the day that we need/want to take advantage of the great sales on the tv's and computers because I imagine it won't be this easy.

So I lovingly say eff you black friday 2009! Wa Hoooo :)