We left on Tuesday and decided to drive all day to maximize our time out there. There were a few things that we were a little apprehensive about:

  • This was Jace’s first long car trip – he would be tested on his sleeping ability
  • Our portable dvd player quit working
  • We would be making stops every few hours so Jace could eat
  • Last time we took a winter trip to Colorado we got stuck in Nebraska for three days.  That is a punishment no one should have to endure.


Thankfully Jace slept like a champ, our friends the Moultons loaned us their dvd player (I had actually bought a new one on Woot.com but it hadn’t arrived yet), the stops weren’t too bad and the finally the weather was great!

Please note that when taking a long trip having a good audio book to listen to makes the trip go a lot faster – that and having headphones for the portable dvd player your daughter is listening to – one can only take so much of the Wiggles Christmas…

We finally pulled into my parent’s driveway about 14 hours later with everyone still in good spirits.

Wednesday the girls went shopping for Abi’s wedding stuff and the guys visited one of my favorite restaurants for lunch – Woody’s Wings ‘n Thing’s.  It’s actually called Wingman now…  Funny thing is that I don’t really like wings all that much but I do here.  I guess it is an acquired taste.

Thursday was the big day and we all went over to my brother’s new house.  It is a very nice and cozy place.  There were about 20 of us there and we all fit very snugly around the table.  The food was awesome and it was a lot of fun having everybody there.

That night we just hung out and played games.  Mickie and I teamed up to smoke everyone at Cranium.  We have a great system where she is the all-time guesser.  It limits what she has to do and feeds my ego…

Friday.  Oh Black Friday.

I’ve never gone shopping on Black Friday before today and wow – what an experience.

We saw an ad for Power Wheel motorized car we had a been wanting to get Mia and it was being offered at a huge discount at Wal-Mart.  So I set my alarm for 4:30.  I didn’t hear it going off until 4:41 so I hastily dressed a ran out the door.  The Wal-Mart was only a couple minutes away but I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.

When I pulled into the parking lot it was almost full.  I still can’t believe the insanity of it all.  I hurried up to doors and found a scene straight out of the movies.  There were pallets of toys in the aisle and people with carts surrounding them like a pack of vultures waiting for the 5am gun to go off.

Not wanting to look like a dork and run, I race walked (yeah, that’s not dorky at all) to to the bike section.  To my dismay there were no boxes of the advertised Power Wheel.  What happened?  Were they gone already?  I thought you couldn’t get them until 5 am.  Then I spotted a couple with a big box in their cart that looked like a Power Wheel.  I made a beeline for them and asked where they had got it.  They told me that it was just sitting out.  At this point I was a little upset and was thinking “what is the point of the 5am start time if you could come at any time and just put it in your cart???”

Luckily I then overheard another customer asking a Wal-Mart employee where the Power Wheels were and he answered “In the Garden section.”  Of course!  The Garden section – why hadn’t I looked there first…wait…

So off to Garden section I went.  When I got there I could see why they were there.  The Garden section is behind a closed door.  And in front of that door were about 50 people with carts fanned out looking like there were at the starting line of the Indy 500.  I didn’t have a cart and for a second considered going to get one.  But I was already way back in the line and decided to stay put.  As I looked through the glass door I could see the prize.  There were 3 pallets of Power Wheels probably 20-30 total.  I started to plot my strategy.

What happened next was nothing short of awesome.  5 am came and the employee opened the door.  Thankfully no one got hurt when all 50 of those carts made a rush for the door.  As physics would have it all 50 can’t get through at the same time.  As physics would also have it, they were spaced just far enough apart that I was able to weave in and out of the traffic jam like a motorcycle during rush hour.  I chucked my pride out the window (while still keeping my testimony intact) and sprinted into the Garden section.  I reached the pallets of gold and procured my prize.  The box wasn’t all that heavy and I was willing to carry it to the register but there happened to be an abandoned cart in the back which I claimed.

Since that was all I wanted I made haste to the register and was out of the store and back home by 5:10.  Sweetness.

After my Black Friday adventure the rest of the weekend paled in comparison.  We watched CU gets their hearts ripped out by 57 yard field goal and played 7 up 7 down every night.  Saturday the young couples got a few hours away while my parents watched the kids.  We ended up going to see the movie Twilight.  It wasn’t my first choice but the girls really wanted to see it.  It ended up not being half bad and pretty interesting.  It would be cool to be a vampire except for the whole blood drinking thing…

We drove back on Sunday in mostly good weather and made really good time.

It was a good week.  I’m very thankful for all of my family.