5th Annual Black Friday {for me that is}

Black Friday shopping at the Woodburn outlets started on Thanksgiving night - crazy I know. The Nike store opened at 9 PM and other stores opened in the hours that followed.  Jane headed down and knew I was considering going so she called and let me know that there was still parking and it wasn't too crazy. When I mentioned it to Tara {I had stopped by to say "Hi"} she decided to go along with me. By the time we got there {around 10pm} we had to park in the second lot across the street but it was still close to the Nike store. Once we got into the store it was a different story - chaos, to say the least. There were at lest 4 or 5 lines weaving all through the store that moved at a snails pace but we endured in the name of a good bargain {although it was questioned from time to time weather it was really worth it}. The really crazy thing was that when we decided to leave {around midnight} the crowd seamed to double in size {or more} and the parking lot was full - we actually saw someone standing in a space trying to save it and someone in a car trying to park with the bumper of the car right up to her knees. I'm not sure who won that battle but it was quite a funny sight to see the woman trying to save the spot telling the driver that she wasn't leaving. By the time we got on the freeway there were an amazing amount of cars lined up to get off the freeway going both ways - it was more than 2 miles. I'm sure parking for them was a nightmare!

I still kept my plans to meet Chantal at 5 am, although I overslept and woke up to Chantal calling me {she overslept last year so now it's even} so technically I met her at 5:30 at Target with coffee in hand. Although the stores we go to are different every year this marked the 5th year that Chantal and I have gone Black Friday shopping at the crack of dawn with each other. We made stops at Target, the Lego store, the Disney store, Michael's, K-mart, the Apple store, and Target one more time {not in that particular order} when all was said and done I have most of my shopping done with just a few more things to pick up {stocking stuffer and gift cards for relatives}. We were done around noon and decided to go to lunch at P.F. Chang's {where we enjoyed great food and a cocktail that nearly put me to sleep} and then saw a movie {Twilight - the second time for me}. It was the perfect day of shopping and girlfriend time with the bonus of having most of my Christmas shopping done! Yeah!