Black Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was my first year shopping on "Black Friday." I was a little scared, but I dragged my cousin, Kristin with me. She goes every year, so she knew exactly what to do. We scoped out the ads the day before and made our lists. Toys R Us opened at 5:00, so we decided to be there in line at 4:30. That meant I had to get up at 3:20 in order to get ready, pick up Kristin and be in line at 4:30. We arrived at Toys R Us and it was raining a little, so we broke out the umbrella and got our place in line...did I mention that Kristin has been sick for like 2 weeks and had a horrible cough? The things we do for our kids!!! We actually got a pretty good place in line and as soon as we showed up, the line grew rapidly! The line started started to move and I got a huge adreniline rush. I wasn't sure what to expect. We grabbed a cart and the maddness started! Games were to the right as we walked in, so I took the cart and stayed in the line as Kristin grabbed the games we wanted. They have it set up so that you have to go around the whole store before you can get in line. From there we took turns grabbing things while one of us stayed with the cart. It worked out perfectly because by the time we were done shopping, we were at the registers. Toys R Us was a success, so we were off to Target!

We got to Target just a few minutes before they opened. Both entrances were lined with people
clear around the building, all the way to the back of the store and even into the parking lot. The line started moving and people were RUNNING into the store. We stood at the front for a few minutes waiting for the back of the line, but it was never there. After a while we decided just to walk to the back of the line and even then it was still into the parking lot. Target is a lot bigger than Toys R Us, so it didn't seem as crowded, but there were a LOT of people. Target had awesome set-ups too. Most of their sale items were in big piles out on the floors close to the isles so you could just grab them. The only down side was that you kind of had to search for things. There were lots of employees out to direct you to what you were looking for and they were totally restocking things as they were emptied. I am a fan of Target on Black Friday. They had every checkstand opened, but people were buying LOTS of things so it went kind of slow.

Wal-Mart STUNK!!! We did get there late...they opened at 5:00 and we got there around 7:00. But, we couldn't find ANYTHING we were looking for, things were in piles all over the store (Kristin finally found her MP3 players over by the baking supplies), and the employees were useless...OH, and NOTHING was marked with a price!!! It was so frustrating. We were trying to find the $5 Barbies and we had no idea which ones they were. Anyway, we were tired and hungry and shopped out, so Wal-Mart was not a good experience. We did end up getting a few good things though.


This is as we are arriving at Target. Notice the line of carts blocking the entrance so that people don't butt in line! Target had bouncers too!!! They had guys that stood in the lines and directed you to the back of the line so you didn't cut in.

This is the back of the line about 3 or 4 minutes AFTER they had opened and people started filing in!!!

The checkstand lines were crazy!!! I have NEVER seen every single checkstand open!!!

It was absolute insanity, but we got some great deals and some fun memories!!! I'm actually looking forward to next year because we did so good at Toys R Us and I think we can make Target better next year. Wal-Mart might not get my business unless they win me over with some KILLER deals. Thanks for coming with me Kristin!!! It was FUN!

Facepainting!

Last night Cooper was chewing on a marker and Jeff went to take it away. The next thing I knew, Cooper had a green mask on! Bridger saw and wanted his face painted and then of course Sydni had to join in. Thank goodness for washable markers!

This is Cooper seeing himself in the mirror for the first time.

Bridger's mucha libre! Or something like that. He thought his face art was the coolest!

Wow Sydni, what beautiful lips you have!

All three cute kiddos and the man behind it all.

New York!

New York was AWESOME!!! We have a LOT of pictures, so this blog is going to be really long. We flew in standby and got first class on the way out!!! We had our own personal touch-screen TV's with 20 movies to choose from and every TV channel. We could also watch a GPS map of the plane and where we were at any time. They brought our drinks out in glass glasses. We took the red-eye that left at like midnight and got into NY early in the morning. When we got off the plane they directed us to the Taxis and a nice driver came and helped us with our luggage. We were thinking it was pretty nice until...
The cops showed up! I guess the guy we were going with wasn't licensed and doesn't have a meter. So, even though he gave us a price, he could charge us anything he wanted when we got to our hotel. Not a good start!!! The cops redirected us back to the taxis and explained the flat rate that taxis have to charge. (By the way, they were HUGE! The big guy was a total New-Yorker with the accent and everything!)

Our hotel!!! We stayed in the Marriott Marquis right in the heart of Times Square!!! Thank you SO much Jennifer!!!

I don't know why this ended up being sideways, but I'm not going back to change it! Recognize this fountain? It's the one from Friends with the umbrellas. We had so much fun in Central Park. It is HUGE! There is so much history there and so many movies shot there, so we took a...

Rickshaw! It was so fun. We got to sit for about an hour with a blanket over us and just enjoy the ride. We had a very nice driver that told us a LOT about the park and let us take some fun pictures. Recognize this from the movies?

We saw a lot of the sites. We saw the Statue of Liberty, but we didn't get very good pictures because she was kind of far away and it was overcast. We didn't end up taking the ferry because it would have taken 2 1/2 hours and we had too many other things to do. We didn't end up going to the top of Empire because it was like $20. But, we did have an AWESOME breakfast right next to it at a bagel shop. We had fresh fruit, hashbrowns, and the BEST bacon egg and cheese bagel. I can't even describe how good the bagel was.

WICKED was AMAZING!!!!! I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. We ended up going to two shows while we were there because you can get tickets the day of the show for 1/2 price. We were standing in line with a lady who had lived in NY for 20 years. We asked her if we never got back to NY, what show we should see while were there. She was so excited to see a certain show that she wouldn't even tell us which one until we let her get in front of us in line...just in case we took her ticket. She was RAVING about Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks. So, that's what we saw...and it was okay. It definitely was not a classic Broadway show. It was funny but it didn't even come close to Wicked!!! I am definitely a fan of the witches!

We shopped until we almost dropped! Canal Street was INCREDIBLE! We needed a cart to wheel around our huge garbage bags of stuff! You should have seen us trying to get onto the subway with all of our bags! I'll have to tell you about Canal. It was a unique experience!

The subways were not as difficult as we thought they were going to be. By the end of the trip, we felt pretty comfortable. Our first day though, we took a train that branched off and we ended up going off of our map and got off and had no idea where we were. We ended up in Brooklyn at the cutest neighborhood with a fun park and a cute little walkway that took us to the Brooklyn bridge and another fun park. You can see Manhattan across the bay where we were supposed to be. It ended up being a really fun adventure and Maren spotted the temple from where we were. We thought this little spot was from the movie I am Legend, but we're not sure.

In the heart of Times Square. We never got sick of Times Square. There was so much to do and see and eat and buy! There were so many yummy restaurants and they had fun street vendors selling stuff for CHEAP! They had cartoonists out that would draw you for $5!!!

I LOVE NY!!!

This is Carmines. If you ever go to NY, you have to eat here. They serve Sicilian food family style and the portions are HUGE. It was so yummy that we kept eating and eating. We didn't have a fridge at our hotel, so we had to throw all of this food away!!! This is us AFTER we had eaten!

One of my favorite places was Serendipity...from the movie Serendipity. It is the cutest cafe with world famous frozen hot chocolate. We shared one because they are so big, and I also cannot describe to you how good it is!!! There is something in their chocolate that makes it so yummy! The food wasn't that great, but the atmosphere made up for it. We got some cheesecake with hot fudge and strawberries to go...we had to catch our flight. For some reason they didn't have plastic forks...I guess not too many people get take-out there. We told him we would figure it out. After all of the hustle and bustle getting into the cab, we forgot about the cheesecake and it got tossed and turned. We opened it up to see the damage and it was pretty smashed. Maren took a taste of the hot fudge from the lid and almost died!!! "You HAVE to try this!" We ended up eating the entire cheesecake with our fingers! It was THAT good!

While we were at the M&M store, a firefighter, fully decked out, walked by us. I hurried and asked him if we could take his picture, "Shuwa" (that's sure in New Yorker). We were so excited that we got a picture with a "real" firefighter and then we realized he was walking around with an axe! I hope we weren't keeping him from something important!

New York was SO much fun!! We both want to go back tomorrow. We definitely will be going back there with our husbands! Thanks Maren for an unforgettable trip! And, thanks Jeff for letting me escape for a few days!

Bridal Veil Falls

I have been picking up so many extras lately to pay for my trip to NY (woo hoo!), that we needed a little family time. We decided to take the kids to Bridal Veil Falls. They had SO much fun. The water was freezing, but they didn't care. All three of them rolled their pants up and took off into the water. We decided it was time to go when their toes turned purple. The leaves were so pretty and it was nice to just walk around.

Scammed!

We were totally scammed by this Polynesian guy and his workers. He came around and said that he was doing a job the next day and had extra concrete if we needed anything done. He gave us a bid for our stairs and a small pad for our future shed. The bid was reasonable and we talked him down a little more. He said they would start in the morning and the next morning they were there digging and setting up forms. He asked for some cash to get the supplies for the forms...and I gave it to him!!! Dumb, I know. The whole time I thought something was shady (hence the private-eye pictures from the kitchen window and the pictures of his truck), and I told him numerous times that I needed a receipt if I was going to give him cash. He acted like it was no problem and he even had the receipt in his hands. Well, somehow he left without handing me the receipt and then before I knew it, they were gone. They worked all day, but did basically nothing. They put these piece of crap forms up, which had to be ripped out when we hired a "real" concrete guy. Anyway, I called the cops and there is nothing they can do and without a receipt, there is no proof that I gave him any money. Anyway, I'm sure they're probably long gone by now, but if you see these guys, don't hire them...and tell them I want my $700.00 back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It turned out great in the end because Jeff's dad had pity on us and found us a legit guy and helped pitch in to get it done. THANK YOU Morris and Kathy!!!! If you need any concrete work done, call Bill Ewell...he is seriously one of the nicest people I've met!

This is the guy!!! He said his name was Tom Lino, I think. He was super nice and we talked about his 8 kids and blah blah blah. He is EVIL!

Well, after all that I definitely learned a HUGE lesson and I hope this will help someone else in the future. It's really sad when we can't trust anyone anymore.

Paint

So, we're finishing the basement and I was painting the boys' room. I bought Behr paint and I got so frustrated with the way it was going on, that I stopped after two walls and left all of the stuff in the room. Bridger got the paint can-opener and opened the paint and did this artwork on one of the white walls. I thought it was kind of cute until Sydni thought it would be a good idea to do it too....twice and dripped it all over the baseboard and the window sill. I didn't take pictures of that because I was frantically trying to clean it up before it dried. Kids...

Goggles

Bridger had his goggles in the bath and Cooper decided to put them on. I thought it was pretty funny!

HALLOWEEN!

Bridger and his friend Makayla. She looked SO cute! Her make-up put my eyeliner smoke to shame! We had a busy day. We picked Bridger up from preschool and then headed right to grandma's for a quick trick-or-treat and then it was off to dad's office for their Halloween party. They go all out...that will be another blog. We were crunched for time, so we stopped at good old Wendy's for fries and nuggets to eat on the way.

Trick-or-Treat Grandma J.

Trick-or-Treat Grandma Johnson and Uncle Kevin.

I didn't take pictures of trick-or-treating in the evening, but they all looked the same. We had a really fun Halloween together. It started to rain while we were out, but that didn't stop the kids. Sydni was hilarious, running from house to house, leaving us in the dust. She was so excited and kept giggling as she ran. She was running so fast that she biffed it like three times. One time she rolled on the grass and lost her candy. She filled her bucket up and took off again. We had a lot of fun. If you are reading this Jessica, thanks for staying late for me so I could trick-or-treat with my kids!

First Snow.

Yesterday morning, Bridger came into my bedroom and tapped me on the arm like he always does to wake me up. I opened my eyes to a bright-eyed little boy bundled up from head to toe with a huge smile on his face. "MOM...IT SNOWED! Can I go outside?" I dragged my butt out of bed and helped Sydni get her snow suit on and we went outside into the blizzard. It didn't snow long and the sun came out, but it was early and still COLD! Sydni spent most of the time on her hands and knees eating the snow.
Sydni's hat kept falling over her eyes.

I had to put this one in here of Cooper Rich because his snow suit is AWESOME!!!

Cooper liked the snow too. (Sydni is still on her hands and knees).

My pretty girl in Bridger's old coat! I guess it's time to get winter coats again.

My sweet Bridger.

They got their best friend, Makayla to join in the fun.

I can't believe winter is here already!