No Sleep, 12 hours of Shopping: Black Friday 2014!

Our 3rd year doing black Friday. .. and my 4th! We just got back from Auburn Hills where we headed on Thursday evening after Aleksy was done work. We got into Auburn Hills a little later this year around 9pm but beofre heading into the mall, we made sure the car was stocked with beer, wine and coolers just in case we couldn't find an open place friday morning!

At Great Lakes Crossing, we had some supper first before delving into the crowds. We went to the Coney Island in the mall... I thought we should try something different and I had never been. Its very much a standard fast food chain where aleksy had some gyros with curly fries and I had a chicken wrap with curly fries. I think we have just about tried every restaurant in the mall now aside from the food court!

We got lots of shopping for the kids of the family (both christmas and birthdays done!) And this year we did pretty good at shopping for ourselves too! We went straight from 10pm to 4am until we had a shopping break with only one coffee in between around 2am.

This was our 4am break: for some wetzel pretzels! Holy crap the buttery goodness.... We tried for some Annie Annes but the line up was massive so we walked across the mall to find the other pretzel joint!

This was a brief break for a sit down and after this we completed the last several stores that we missed, and left the mall around 6:30am. We headed to Kohls, but fist stopped for coffee numero 2 at 7am at the Panera bread just down from Kohls. There were people sleeping in the chairs at the coffee shop and our eyes were staring to close so we got outta there before we fell asleep too! We hit up Kohls & DSW then drove down to Lakeside mall around 9am where we needed to hit up hollister and finally we got to IHOP breakfast at 11am. The line at IHOP is always huge! But th pancakes are so darn good!

After breakfast at IHOP, we made one stop at Toys R Us, then headed to our hotel which we were supposed to check in for 3pm. It was around 1pm.

We tried to chec in for 1pm, but the room wasn't quite ready so we had 20 minutes to kill... so here's Aleksy handing me my wine (the time killer). We then slept from 2pm-6:30pm!

We stayed at the extended stay America this year... this is the 4th different hotel that we have stayed at in Auburn Hills... and I think we found the one we won't go back to. This one was a little run down and the breakfast was basically just coffee (because the other option was granola bars, which appeals to no one!).

And the purchases! The forever 21 clothes we bought for ourselves (all not on sale but we still waited in the hour line), I got some new kicks for the gym, I got a new work bag, and Aleksy got himself some new winter boots. The rest is pretty much children's things and other gifts! We spent a total of about $700 with no problems at the border bringing anything back!

This year, in between sleeps from 7pm to 11pm Friday, we had planned to hit up Joes Crab Shack (the last time we ate there was Florida!), but due to budget cuts from extra shopping for ourselves, we decided on Popeyes. A nice wholesome alternative of deep fried chicken, fries and a biscuit... but fraction of the cost of eating out!

On Saturday, we made one last stop to Wal Mart to pick up our usual fun food items before heading out. We got my favourite boston cream yogurts & chocolate mint ice cream gum with some other Christmas related things then made the 4 hour drive from Auburn Hills to Hamilton for Serena's 5th birthday party at 3pm!

Wrapping presents is my favourite thing of life. There's already lots of Christmas presents wrapped under our tree before December (I have even already started wrapping my black Friday finds!). Too many presents under the tree that Kate's spot under the tree is now being pushed out to beside the tree. Only 25 days to go!