I Suck At Colony Place

today, i went shopping with my bff (kerry).

we ended up at target where kerry got a super duper vacuum deal. afterwards, we went to wendy's for a quick lunch where i got to try wendy's new strawberry frosty shake. the shake was rather good. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) and from there, we went back to our house to unload the shopping goods and prepare for the next plan of attack, as we weren't done shopping yet.

after catching a quick episode of "the phantom gourmet" and "property ladder", we decided to go to colony place which is located in plymouth. now, i suck at colony place. i have never been there. karen has been there with my favorite sister-in-law (janine) and her friend (anne) some time ago. for those of you who do not know what colony place is... colony place is a basically a shopping area. according to the website, colony place is

"the largest outdoor shopping and entertainment center in the region. An exceptionally designed lifestyle destination for the entire family, Colony Place has more of what you want. And all in once place. With special events, specialty retail, restaurants, home furnishings, services, electronics and even groceries, Colony Place is the one place for everything."

one of the reasons we decided to go to colony place was red robin. red robin is a restaurant change down south. neither karen nor i have ever been to red robin. kerry, however, has eaten there when she lived down in virginia and loved the all you can eat steak fries and burgers. that was enough to convince karen and i (well... more appropriately... me). and as it turned out, the closest location was colony place. so, we figured we'd go do some more shopping and then eat at red robin afterwards.

i must say colony place is very nice. we started our shopping at bed, bath and beyond. while kerry got a discount on some new cooking utensils, karen was absolutely elated to get a deal on a framed piece of art. the framed artwork apparently rang in less than what she thought it was. so, she was pleasantly surprised.

from there, we went to wal-mart. yes... wal-mart. for anyone who knows me, i am not a big fan of the evil empire known as wal-mart. although we didn't end up purchasing anything (and kerry was close to because she saw a reasonably priced trash can), i was quite surprised by this particular wal-mart. this particular wal-mart was absolutely ginormous... and the people there... were actually quite nice. had i not been tainted by the wal-mart locations of quincy and weymouth, i would have never known how awful wal-mart was. as kerry had mentioned to me, the store in comparison to those locations was a complete night and day. you would not have known that this particular store was a wal-mart. it was shocking to me.

once i recovered from my inexplicable awe over wal-mart, we walked around colony place to see the stores. karen picked up a dress at the maternity store there. i don't remember the name of the place. i do, however, remember they have quite the weird return policy because you can only return the item within 10 days... and only for store credit (even with the original receipt) which is quite odd to me. regardless, karen got a goody bag as it was her first time in the store.

from there, we saved the biggest shopping deal for the end. we went to some store called ulta. i have never heard of the store... and probably for a good reason. apparently, the store is a beauty store much like sephora. kerry has one by her way. since karen needed a new hair dryer anyway (because her hair dryer apparently burns her hair), we went in to browse around. as it turned out, it was kerry who scored the sweet deal on a new hair dryer. karen simply got a basic one. (i just played with all of the hair dryers there. who knew there were so many types of hair dryers?) kerry ended up getting a super duper fancy hair dryer for 20%. she was very excited.

needless to say, kerry had a very good shopping day today between the deal she got at target and the deal she got at ulta. all in all, it was a very enjoyable shopping experience. i would definitely go back to colony place.