Happy Halloween!

We hope you had a fun and safe Halloween!

We have just wrapped up handing out candy for Halloween as the trick or treat parade has ended at our house. There were a lot of baby shark costumes, toy story costumes and Avengers costumes. It was raining off and on throughout the day but stopped around 4 or 5 PM and then cleared up into a nice and warm evening. The temperature was perfect for the evening outside – substantially warmer than it has been in past years.

We participated in the Teal Pumpkin Project again this year, and the non-candy items were a big hit! We have been providing allergy free items to children for the past two years and love it! This was the most popular year for it for us as many kids preferred the non-candy item to the candy. This was a bit of a shock. The toy glasses went fast, as well as the pencils and the coloring books.

In other news, we only waited an hour or so to pickup the pizza. The report back from our team member was that the place was a zoo and that there were a lot of frustrated customers. This was a win compared to other people in the area. Our neighbor ordered their pizza in late afternoon for delivery and it took three hours to get there.

We also had some trouble accessing the internet on the cell phone while outside. Apparently, there must have been a lot of traffic or some other technical difficulty on the network as it was nearly impossible to surf the web. Of course, we were not on there for too long so it was not a big deal overall. The point of the evening was the candy and costumes so I did not mind too much.

We had some great fun in October, including visiting the haunted houses at Fright Fest found at Six Flags Great Adventure as well as a trip over Columbus Day weekend to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania to see the fall foliage. We are always sorry to see it go!

With Halloween in the books, the calendar will turn to November 1 in a few hours here on the East Coast and with it comes the Black Friday ads! Amazon is expected to launch its early Black Friday sales starting on Friday and more will be announced every day. Kohls has also posted a teaser on its website already that it is launching a one day sale in store and online starting at midnight (Update – Sorry, it is 1 AM according to our countdown math) eastern. This is in line with our projected release date of the Kohls Black Friday ad of November 1st.

One of the best parts about the Kohls sale is that you also get Kohl’s cash. The store offers $10 back for every $50 that you spend in-store or online. So do not forget about this aspect as you are trying to decide which store has the best Black Friday deal. If the Kohls price is competitive with a deal at another store, the Kohls cash always puts it over the top in favor of this store.

We have not yet seen a preview of what will be included in the early Black Friday deal at Kohls.

But it is only a few more hours you can see the deals starting at midnight (Eastern) on the Kohls website.