First of all, thank you for all of the get well wishes. I am not feeling 100% yet, but definitely better than yesterday. I did call Cutie Patootie today and he did not recognize my voice. Either I need to call him more often or I must sound really bad. Now, I know you all want to hear about our trip and what we bought.
Lexi and I flew out to San Diego via Nashville on Southwest. We met a very "interesting" man on the flight from Nashville to San Diego. He sat in between us, took BOTH armrests and wanted to chat for 4.5 hours. San Diego was beautiful, stunning weather and easy to navigate. The first order of business was to find the nearest Hard Rock Cafe. Brad MUST have a hat. It's how he rolls. After our quick trip downtown to the Hard Rock, we hit the "5" and headed north. We went to the small town of LaJolla. It's on the Pacific Ocean. It has a cove, beaches, boutique, hotels and restaurants. A California beach town. We loved it. The smell of the sea, the breeze and the atmosphere was fabulous after a long flight. Next stop, fill tummy. Jack in the Box! Yes, it's a fast food joint, but I always love things I can't have here. After our greasy burger, we were off to Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside. Lexi and I were the last two visitors in the door and we loved the church, museum and grounds. It's called the King of the California Missions, and it's easy to see why. Large grounds, large church and a great view of the surrounding hills. We spent another hour on the "5" and rolled into Anaheim about 7pm. The first thing we see is Jen and Kristen from Whim at the 7-11. Yep, no kidding. We go all the way to Cali to see people 20 minutes away! Lexi and I check into our hotel, the Anabella. Bed felt good, very good. All that, and just day one.
Day two starts with some work. We were lucky enough to score an invitation to the Fiskars pre-show event. We LOVE it when we can write a show order early. We met up with Phyllis (just one of our favorite sales reps, we have many. How's that for PC, redhead?) and she helped us write one of our biggest orders of the show. Fiskars has Heidi Grace, Cloud 9, Lil Davis and Fiskars cutting tools. There is so much to love here- but my FAVE was the Heidi Grace baby. After Fiskars, we did a little more sightseeing. San Juan Capistrano and Laguna Beach were fabulous. San Juan Capistrano had a wonderful audio tour. The grounds were immaculate, the church and chapel were stunning. We made our way to the PCH and drove to Laguna Beach, another beach town. Lunch was uppermost on our minds and we made a quick left turn and found a restaurant with tables outside by the beach. Lexi had a lobster salad sandwich and I had a crab and shrimp salad in an avocado with mixed greens. I have photos, the food was amazing. Lexi told me the only thing that would be left of her lunch was the toothpicks and she was right. The rest of the day was work, work, work. We wrote orders at Creative Imaginations, SEI and Stamping Station preshow events. Creative Imaginations was amazing as usual. They have such a wide variety of product. From artsy to SeaWorld. From altered items to John Deere stickers, they've got it. SEI had some great new papers, baby boy and girl, Dill Blossom and Jolie Chocolat. Lovin me some SEI. I also got a chance to meet David, who totally helped us with albums for our Treasure Hunt bags. Thanks SEI. Thanks to CI for Treasure Hunt goodies AND Stamping Station for Treasure Hunt paper. Stamping Station had wonderful new travel and we do travel in a big way. Whew, end of day two.
Day Three- CHA opens. This was a long day. We met Phyllis in the morning and Judy Uchida in the afternoon. Lots of order writing. Lots of looking. Lot's of oohhing and aahhing. We saw lots of friends- Ory from Lonestar in Texas, Shelly from Scrapbook Fever in Oregon, Beth from Scrapbook Junkie in Texas, Courtney and Elizabeth from Florida, and Diane from Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley, CA. I love the fact that even after so many years, you really get excited to see other store owners you know. Somewhere along the way, we ran into Donna and Bill. I heard a "Hey Julie" from the Basic Grey booth. Apparently, "Hey Julie" has become something in the Downey house. After all the "risque" Hey Julie's on the cruise, I don't want to know what it means. We decided to hook up for dinner with the Downey's, it was Bill's first visit to PF Changs. We had so much fun, being loud, and eating until we could not eat anymore. Actually, not all true. Donna is on a diet and has lost almost 20 pounds. She had salad and steamed veggies. Proud of you!
Day Four- Day two of CHA. We met with Gary this morning. It was nice to get into the show early with a pass from Gary, another of our reps. It's easier when there are less people on the show floor. We wrote some neat companies with Gary like Basic Grey, Kaiser, Sassafras Lass and Heidi Swapp. After Gary, we walked the new exhibitors and had lunch. We sat down, in a restaurant. We rarely do that, it was a treat for a show day. After lunch, we met with Sue Deese and wrote more orders- do you see the pattern, write orders, write orders, write orders. Sue has great companies like Reminisce, Tinkering Ink and Luxe. We went to an EK Success event after hours and met up with the Doodlers and Diana from Violettes. Had a little dinner, a lot of laughs and hit the sack.
Day Five- Day Three of CHA. This was the only day we did not have meetings with sales reps. We managed to walk the ENTIRE showfloor from one end to the other. We wrote orders, gathered catalogs and felt good about how much progress we were making. The best part of today was seeing Chris (Cutie Patootie) at QK. And Spencer (Sunshine), Kyle (Loser) and Eric (the sexiest man in scrapbooking). We love the new Revolution platform and 12 inch dies. The platforms are shipping April and the 12 inch dies are sooner, go figure. We also found our friends at the Inque Boutique booth. They are branching out into paper and embellies. You will be happy. We saw a sneak peek ages ago and could not wait until this came to market. Now just about this time, I am starting get the "chills and coughs". Dinner was in our room. Phyllis stopped by our room, we gave her some dinner and MORE ORDERS. This is the time I fell asleep fully clothed watching TV.
Day Six- Oh dear, aren't we through yet? No wonder why I got sick. I am exhausted just writing about this. This is the last day of the show, it closes early at 2pm. Our last appointment was with Scarlett. She has expanded her lines to include K and Co and EK. K and Co was stunning. Did I say stunning? The Seaglass collection was awesome, Berry Sweet was so bright and happy. Rough and Tumble was another great boy line. If you have boys, this is the year for you. EK had some fun stuff too. Lot's of new Jolees, new Disney and more. Also, we bought the Martha Stewart glitter line. You can finally buy just what you want from Martha. I WANT the glitter and you will too! After the show floor closed, we had lunch/dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We even brought Chris a piece of cheesecake because he had to stay and take down the QK booth. Alright, time for one last trip before the airport. A "quick" 3 hour trip to Hollywood via the "5", the "710", the "405" and the "101". You know, Brad needed another Hard Rock hat from Hollywood. Our trip from LAX to Atlanta was so fast, only 3.5 hours. Our plane was only 7 days old too. It had "new plane" smell- lol. (It took almost that long to get from Anaheim to Hollywood!) Brad met me in baggage claim with roses and even though I have a cold, he makes me feel better. In case you don't know, my husband is one of the best. He calls me the love of his life. Does it get better?
That's it in a nutshell. I thought you might like an alpha list of some of the companies we bought at the show to round this LONG, LONG post. Enjoy!
Amanda Blu, Anna Griffin, Autumn Leaves, Bam Pop, Basic Grey, Bazzill, Bo Bunny, Boxer Productions, ClearScraps, Cloud 9 Design, Cosmo Cricket, Colorbok, Crate Paper, Creative Imaginations, EK Success, Eyelet Outlet, F and W Publications, Fiskars, Flair Designs, GCD, Glitz Designs, Hambly, Heidi Grace, Imaginisce, Inque Boutique, Jenni Bowlin Studio, Kaiser Craft, K and Co, KI, Karen Foster, Lil Davis, Luxe, Maude Asbury, Maya Road, MAMBI, Moxxie, Meri Meri, Notions Marketing, PaperHouse, Paper Salon, Prima, Queen and Co, Quickutz, Reminisce, Sandylion, Sassafras Lass, Scenic Route, Scrapworks, SEI, Sonburn, Stamping Station, Stemma, The Paper Company, Tsukineko, Tinkering Ink, Uchida, Westrim, and Worldwin.