Last night Mary and Corine went black friday shopping at Walmart at 8pm and then again to Kohl's at midnight but I stayed behind - too tired and full from Thanksgiving. But today I went with Melissa and her mom out to Kohl's and then a bunch of other stores. Fortunately the crowds weren't too bad and Melissa's mom was able to get pretty much everything she wanted to buy. Melissa bought a few things for the girls for Christmas and all I bought was one small gift for Aubrey and a dress for the rehearsal. I found a dress that I thought I liked but they only had it in a size four - I used to be a four but now I'm typically a six. I thought the dress was a bit tight and wasn't going to get it but the lady at the store suggested I buy it anyways since it's such a good deal and then come back next week to see if they put out more sizes of the same dress (but the sale was only today). If I end up keeping it I'll post a pic later :) Now for a preview of tomorrow's fun:
Even though I am from Colorado, I can't remember a year where we went and cut down our own Christmas tree. I was thinking last year how much I wished we could do that and how unlikely it seemed since we live in Florida now. But last year I did some searching online and I found Santa's Christmas Tree Forest in Eustis, FL (kind of near Sanford/Orlando).
http://www.santaschristmastreeforest.com/about_us.html
Last year was the first year we went and it was a pretty successful trip. I think we spent around $100 and we got a big 10ft tree (or maybe even taller) plus we all got a hot dog, chips and soda for lunch, the kids went on the bounce pillow and the zipline, pictures with Santa and pony rides (all included in the $100 we spent). Now the trees that grow naturally in florida are a little different (see their website for info) and they aren't the really dense evergreen and northern pine trees. However we were still able to put all of our ornaments on the tree (lots of branches) and none of the ornaments were too heavy for the tree.
There was one comical part of picking the tree last year...to pick the tree, you ride in a hayride around the field and then when you think you see a tree or area of trees you might like then you get off and go cut down your tree. We were looking for a big tree and there didn't seem to be that many so we stayed on the hayride until almost the very end of the field and then got off and found the best/biggest tree we could. When you are done, the hayride comes back and picks you up again and then when we got on the hayride we thought we would be almost back to where we started since we stayed on the hayride until the end of the field...but they took us to a second field where they have all the big trees, LOL. So this year we will definitely stay on the hayride all the way until the big field!
Tomorrow I'll try to post pics of the actual place and the tree we get. Ryan's mom, brother and sister (and all their kids) will go with us as well as our friends Al & Doreen and Nate & Kayla.
Hope everyone had a good Black Friday shopping day!
PS. Only 2 weeks until the wedding!!
