Shopping Sunny Saturday

Well, I tired the early to bed thing last night - going to bed around 11 - stayed up and watched the clock til about midnight and then our room was totally way too warm. We all slept in until around 8AM and then got ready for our day. The hotel offered a cooked to order breakfast so we all went down around 9AM. It was good and fast - we made our plans while eating breakfast. The one guy working on replenishing the buffet breakfast supplies was totally disgruntled.
We packed into two cars and were on our way to the Lang Store Outlet and Half Price Books. No huge bargains at either place but I did find Thomas themed English crackers for some fun at Christmas. Next door to Half Price was this store called Small Stones and it was a health related book/gift store. I got a plaque for our house with a nice saying, a Christmas gift for a friend and I found queasy pops in the cancer section. I am sure they are similar to preggie pops but for $3.00 I thought I would take a chance they they'll come in handy at some point.
We stopped and got a gas refill in the cars and a hot drink for the road - yummy hershey's devil food cake hot cocoa with whipped cream. We were on our way to the outlet mall in hope of some deals. We scored at Bath & Body Works Outlet - a couple 75% racks and then just good sales. Mom found some very cute outfits for the kids at Gymboree for Christmas. Crocs store was another great score - most every style was buy one get one free - all the kids and Jo found shoes and jibbitz to put in them. Ole found his gym shoes but don't really look like gym shoe shoes - don't ask. We were outlet mall pooped out and left and got a snack at Culver's before venturing back to the hotel.
On the way back we stopped at this darling market that had serious samples - it seems like they had samples of about 60% of their items available - which just leads to purchases when you are hungry. They had some very tasty Wisconsin cheeses and sausages (at least that is what the meat eaters said). We came back to the hotel and everyone got dressed for the pool (except Mom and me) and they headed down for some swim time. Jo, Ole and Tony were the first back up saying it was freezing. It took my bunch and Dad about another 45 minutes to come up. Mom came into our room (we have three rooms all next to each other and ours is the middle room connected to Jo's room). My gang came back and I gave Nick a mini bath before getting him in his pjs - Ellie got hers on too.
It was the manager's reception time so a few of us went down for appetizers and drinks - we found out tonight that the drinks offered were full bar and not just wine and beer. We came back up to the room and we were going to order in Outback for dinner - the restaurant was in the next parking lot over. We placed our order and Rob and Ole had made friends with the bartender and found out there wasn't a drink limit and just kept on going back for more. Dad and I went to pick up dinner and we brought it back except somehow when changing a side around Mom's order didn't get imputed so we walked back and picker Mom's up.
Everyone ate quietly and nicely for a make-shift dining experience but the food was good and a bit different than we normally have. After dinner the kids went down for their evening milk and cookie run and we had family movie night - Elf was on. It always amazes me how funny certain parts of that movie are - I especially like the part when Buddy finds out Santa is coming tomorrow.
The little boys strayed and were playing with trains and at about 9:20 I asked Nick if he wanted to cuddle and he said yes so I put him to sleep. I got back out just to see the end of the movie and say goodnight to Jo and Tony. Rob went to bed with Ellie and Mom and Dad left. I am sitting watching SNL and blogging. We are going to our favorite Mexican restaurant for brunch tomorrow morning - La Estacion - it is in an old train station and beside real train tracks - they actually have converted two passenger cars into seating - anyways - delicious food. Visualising my healthy and continually recovering body and the new normal me- whomever that shall be, Tree