Shop till you drop.

This past weekend Gary and I took a short trip down to the states to do some much needed shopping.  It was also a little get away for us to celebrate both my birthday and our anniversary.

We left early Friday and was down there in time for lunch at IHOP.  Then we hit the stores!

I had a definite list of items I needed to buy (clothes for work), wanted to buy (bedding), and hoped to buy (craft supplies).  Off we went... the closest store to IHOP was Target.  Super Target at that.  We are all terribly excited here to be getting a Target store in the next year... so we were anxious to see what we might be getting.

I was disappointed.  It was quite expensive for the quality of merchandise they were offering - in fact most of the items were the same price, and some where actually higher than the same item would be here in our stores.

So Target was a short stay.

On to Gordmans... now there's a store!   The clothes were much too young for me, but the rest - OH WOW I loved it!  As we made our way to the back of the store, I could feel myself getting warm.  This happens to me at a fairly regular occurrence, so I thought it would pass, but it did not.  In fact it got worse.  It was the store, and not me... it had to be 100 degrees in there and the longer we were in there, the hotter it got.  Finally I couldn't stand it, so we decided to leave and go back at a different time.  We completely missed the Christmas section, and most of the home accessories section... which was what I wanted to see the most!

On to good old Wal Mart.  This was without a doubt the largest Wal Mart store I have ever been in - it was even larger than the one in Chicago.  My head was spinning after about 15 minutes in there.  I was drawn to the Christmas section, but then wandered into the bedding section, then wandered in to the clothes section, then crafts... so yeah I wandered around without actually seeing a thing.  In the end Gary ended up with a terrific winter jacket - and I walked out in a daze, empty handed.

We stopped at a few more stores, he bought - I wandered, and then it was time to find our hotel and rest.

Determined to end the aimless wandering spree, we set out early Saturday morning for another go at shopping.  We hit Kmart first because it was on the way to the mall - Gary bought - I wandered.  When we arrived at the mall I sat down and had a very stern discussion with myself.  "Shop, you Idiot -  the day will be gone and you will have lost your opportunity!"

Sears - I bought.  Penny's - I bought and bought and bought!  Maceys' - yeah, I bought.  Back to Wal Mart - I bought.  and by the time the day was over we had finished our Christmas shopping, and much on my list was in the van.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

Mission accomplished....

Only there was this terrific section in Gordman's that was calling me.  I decided I would check that out before we left for home in the morning.

Well that didn't actually work in my favor - the stores didn't open till noon on Sunday, and by that time we were on the highway headed home.

All in all - aside from the fact that I missed that incredible section in Gordman's and the fact that I did not find one craft item at a reasonable price - the trip was a complete success...

The best part - spending time with Gary... think we will do this more often from now on...