Black Friday (11-25-11)

Sure. You always hear how crazy Black Friday is. The shoving. The lines. The incredible sales. The excitement.

Jeff and I had never experienced the madness for ourselves. We came up with the brilliant idea to sleep at my parents' house Thanksgiving night so we could hit the midnight deals with Eli in their care.

We didn't have any big ticket items we were looking for. I was more interested in seeing what all the hype was about.

We left the house at 9:50 for the 10:00 sales at Wal-Mart. We were welcomed by a filled parking lot with cars lining the streets for miles. Jeff and I were completely shocked. And that was before we even went inside.

Inside, every aisle was a sea of gridlocked customers chatting frantically on cell phones about who's getting what deal. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. I've vowed to never see it again. We were outta there within five minutes of walking through the doors.

A Salt Lake mall was opening its doors at 12:00, so we made our way down there to see what that was like. It looked significantly less crazy when we pulled up at 11:00 to a very short line and an almost empty parking lot. We decided to find a Denny's to kill some time before our 12:00 shopping spree.

Perhaps I spent many of my high school mornings at Denny's as I escaped class for a sip of hot chocolate. And perhaps their hot chocolate is still as good as it was five years ago.

Jeff went big and ordered us an appetizer and he got a meal.

I was still full on Thanksgiving dinner so my hot chocolate sufficed my midnight cravings. (Can you tell I'm not used to staying up past 10:00 anymore? I look kind of like a zombie.)

We chatted about Germany for most of the night. I love to hear about Germany. We had a lot of fun.

I called my brother as we were finishing up at Denny's to see if Eli was still asleep. My plan was not to have my Mom up wrestling a screaming Eli all night so we could Black Friday shop. So when I found out he was in fact up and screaming, and had been for the past two hours, we thought it best to head back to our parenting responsibilities.

Our date ended with a hyper Eli up and ready to play from 12:00 - 2:30.

Sarah High - Chatting with Jeff at Denny's.
Sarah Low - Eli not sleeping. If only he knew all the Christmas presents he prevented himself from getting.

Jeff High - Experiencing Black Friday for the first time.
Jeff Low - Being trapped at Wal-Mart with no escape.