Following the crowd...

Our kids don't watch a lot of TV, only movies, and so we don't get to see all the excellent advertising done by toy makers at Christmas time. They are usually pretty content with thrift store presents or some clearance toy they have had their eye on as we walk the clearance isles. Rumor has it that there is one REALLY popular toy right now. We heard some friends talking about them at school the other day and none of the children had even heard of them. Well today our entire crew went to Toys R Us to spend Joshua and Ashlyn's $3 gift cards they got for their birthdays in October before they expired. We were amazed at how busy the parking lot was. I could tell John had wished he didn't join us on this fun Sat adventure as soon as we got in. He was very proud that our family had finished Christmas shopping I think. There was a huge line for the above mentioned popular toy and people had been standing in line for 3 hours to get one. They passed out coupons to everyone in line and then handed the toys out in a store room in the back. When the line moved out a little more and we started looking for toys under $5, Ashlyn and I were talking about coming back a different day to use the card because we couldn't find anything she really wanted. She asked exactly what the popular toy was like and I told her that we could go and stand at the end of the line to see. When we got there, the line was gone. We were handed the coupon and on our way to the store room to find out. They are actually pretty cute! So $5 later (thanks to Geoffrey for the birthday present) we now own Zach, our new ZhuZhu Pet....
Oh for those who were wondering about Joshua. He got a Mario Brothers DVD for $2 (after the $3 gift card went through) and he was pretty excited. Caleb and Jonathan got to ride on the ride-ons at the checkout for waiting in the checkout line so long.