We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal yesterday with friends..... relaxing and good company. Today was a really great day too. I think possibly the first that we've been out all day with all 3 kids and not become stressed by at least one of them for some reason!
The Friday following Thanksgiving is known as 'Black Friday' because the stores all have crazy sales and open at 4am for the insane and desperate. People queue up all night to get the great deals when the doors open. Generally speaking it is the perfect day to avoid shops at all costs. So of course, that's exactly what we didn't do.
We did, however, avoid the big sale spots, and we also did manage to have a great time. We went down to Redmond which is a town center not completely unlike the UK and somewhat unusual in the US.... in otherwords it is outside, there are paths, the shops are beside each other and you don't have to drive from one to another, there are cafes and coffee shops, and it's generally quite a nice place for a stroll. The choice of shops is a little lacking but it's still quite nice for a wander and not the sort of place which is under siege from sale-mad types.
We parked up and had lunch, then we walked to stores outside of the town center - probably a mile or two - with Tabitha sleeping peacefully in the stroller and also Harry sitting happily in it. We managed to browse around several places without getting stressed by someone crying or someone running off or someone breaking things. We got back into the town and Gareth took the boys on the 'Santa Train' which is a little train that drives around the town decorated in fairy lights (they enjoyed it!) while I browsed a couple of shops (I enjoyed it!) and Tabitha continued to snooze. Then we headed to the bookstore and sat and had coffee, she woke and fed, the boys ate cookies..... really nice. Nobody screamed, nobody was badly behaved, nobody was stressed out.
We finished off by going to Target and getting a little HD Video Camera and then coming home for tea.... and finally Dylan and I went out to the movies to see 'Enchanted' which was entertaining and fun.
Great day - zero stress, enjoyable family time :-)
Posted by katie at November 24, 2007 01:54 AM