We are back! Here's the day by day, play by play. Probably way more than you wanted to know, but well, that's the way we are.
Thursday: We left Providence at 3:30 in the afternoon. I spent the morning cleaning my house and writing down instructions for Cathie who would be watching my kids....... nothing like the last minute, and I used every single one.
We had left early because Lindsay needed to have his blood tested before we flew out. The test was good, but we had time to kill before our flight left so we went to dinner and did some window shopping.
The flight into Long Beach was so bumpy that I nearly lost that dinner, but in the end we made it safe and sound.
Friday: We started out much too early for me with a morning class for some of our store owners. Once we located our boxes, things went pretty smoothly. The only problem....... we had double the Material Girl sample kits with not a Garden Variety kit to be found.
After the class, Lindsay and I went to help Eric with the booth. The union guys hadn't shown up yet, so nothing was done. I had made a CHA mix on my ipod that I promptly plugged in to the speakers.
Lindsay and Eric left me for some reason, I can't remember now. The union guys showed up. Part way through set up, one of them said, "Can you turn down your music, or better yet turn it off?" That made me mad, so afterward, I refused to help them at all. When they would ask for help I would reply, "I'm a girl, I don't lift things" or "I'm not union, I really don't feel qualified."
By the time Eric and Lindsay returned, the booth was up and waiting to be filled with the new products.
Then we divided again. I stayed to dress the booth. Eric went to do an event with some stores. Lindsay went to do an event with some other stores. Then, Eric got sick. I left to go to his event. It was winding down and so then I took all the projects from there and ran them over to Lindsay's event, which he dragged me into. An hour later Lindsay and I were back at the booth.
We were in a hurry because we wanted Saturday to be a play day. Eric started feeling better and came over to help us. We managed to get it all done. Exhausted, freezing (they had the doors open and it was cold, especially by 8:00 that night) and hungry, we met up with Natasja for dinner.
Saturday: Since all the work was done Friday, we had the whole day to spend. Lindsay thought it would be fun to take Natasja to Beverly Hills and Hollywood. I had planned to take her to the antique district in Orange, having lunch at the drugstore in the movie "Doing that Thing You Do" and then hitting Balboa Island. But, I'm not one argue for my way. So we headed to Beverly Hills.
We never did get out of the car in Beverly Hills. Lindsay likes driving, which is amazing since he's so bad at it. We were lost quite a bit of the time. Our conversations were constantly interrupted by, "please make a U-turn." Eventually we did make it to the Hollywood walk of fame.
Although I go to California frequently, and have my whole life, I have never been to Hollywood. Now I know why. A little scary, although I did find a lovely chain blouse with tassels for myself and a bong for Eric......... I'm kidding, we didn't actually buy them, but they were everywhere!
After that enlightening experience, we went to Balboa. There is a great little Italian restaurant that we like and it's a tradition to eat there.
Then we drove up the coast stopping at Huntington beach because Lindsay really had to use the Little Man's room. It cost $15 dollars to enter the beach. That has got to be the most expensive outhouse potty break ever.
Sunday-Tuesday: The show. We were in our booth all day, everyday.
Wednesday: The last day of the show. Thom came over to get a photo of me wearing his T-shirt, yes, he did beat me.
I don't know if it's because we are so tired at this point, if it's because we have been living on Tim Tams for 3 and a half days, or if it's because all the stress is over, but we get a little silly.
Lindsay's leg was swollen from standing so much and so we made him put it up.
This is me plugging in the power, one of my best photos, I must say. That darn plug is hard to get to!
Here are some of the FAB projects from our design team that we displayed at the show:
