Shop 'til we drop

I recently took a "mom break" and flew to my sister's to help her and J get settled in their new house. Our parents met us there for a week of unpacking, cleaning, arranging and of course, shopping for the perfect things to fill all their new space. My sister has always been the one in the group who likes to shop the least. She does like to shop, but not for sport like some of the rest of us.

Anyway, Mom and I love to take a project like an empty house and bargain hunt for the great stuff to fill it up! Our approach is to spend an entire day or two visiting lots of stores, buy everything that might work, take it home and then decide what stays and return the rest. Our reasoning is that you never know what something will look like until you get it home and mix it with the rest of your stuff! Amy's approach is to shop for one or two hours at one or two stores, buy one or two things and then forget about shopping again for another month. Both are good options, but only one is fun for the people who have to go back to their own homes in a week. :) Needless to say, she was waaaaay out of her comfort zone when Mom and I forced her to fill up the SUV on our marathon day of shopping. This is what the car looked after we left our second stop of the day.

Yes, all three of those carts were ours.

So off we went to find more items that she had to have. And shortly thereafter, the car looked like this. Notice she is still smiling. She obviously thinks we're about done. But we're not. It's still daylight!

At this point Mom and I had become dubbed the 'shopping bullies' by my sister. You can see it in her face as we cram more into the car after the next few stops.

So our 9-hour shopping excursion came to a close at 9pm that night, only because the doors were starting to be locked and lights were starting to go out. We did suggest a trip to the all-night Wal*Mart, but of course that was a no-go. Guess everyone has their limits.