ABC Show 2011

The ABC Show is the largest annual domestic trade show for juvenile, infant and maternity products. Every possible thing you have ever thought about purchasing for your kids (and a lot of stuff that you haven't even heard of) is at this show. Fisher Price, Graco, Chicco, Nuby, Nuk, Boppy, Bright Stars, Munchkin and The First Years are just some of the "big boys" that exhibit at this show every year.  There are tens of thousands of attendees--including everything from Exhibitors, Vendors, Retailers and Big-Box Buyers, Distributors, Sales Reps and Agents, Media, Special Services Personnel and Guests. Baby Banana Brush has had the opportunity to attend this show for the past three years, and many of our major clients found us as a result of our presence at the show. This year the show was held in Louisville, instead of the usual Las Vegas destination, so the attendance was a little bit less than usual. However, despite the lower number of international attendees and regular customers, we still feel that we had a very successful show. We placed lots of orders and we worked very hard, now we are busy with all of the follow-up that comes after attending a show of this magnitude. 

 We did have a little bit of downtime for some "monkey business" in the booth.

 We passed out LOTS of samples of our new product, The Baby Sharky Brush.

 I asked Moms if we could snap pictures of their babies using the brush whenever I could.

 Babies using and enjoying the product is truly the best marketing we could ask for.

There were MANY people who came by the booth saying, "I just saw a baby over there going to town on one of these things", or "I've seen these before, my neighbor/sister/friend's baby has one", etc.

 Our theme this year was "Sharks" but we tried to mesh it with our Banana Brush theme too. Having this big Shark cut-out was only scary for us inside the booth (just kidding). It actually made a lot of passers-by take a second look at our booth.

Here's how the booth looked at the end of set-up on our first night. We were right next to a lot of really big retailers, but the layout this year was weird, so some people had a hard time finding us. 

 Janet was our dutiful accountant and she worked very hard all week long. Getting up early, going to bed late, long hours on our feet without eating, making lots of compromises, having to keep many different clients information straight, and staying organized amid mild chaos were challenging for all of us, but Janet did a great job of managing everything.

At the end of the day, we barely had enough energy to eat dinner before crashing into bed. We thought we should do at least one notable thing while we were in Louisville, so we asked our taxi driver to take us to Churchill Downs, which is the huge racetrack where the Kentucky Derby is held each year. We expected this to be in the middle of a rural area surrounded by green, rolling hills--we were wrong. It is in the middle of two major freeways and it is surrounded by dilapidated, cramped, old-looking houses. The building itself was very pretty, and spread out over many acres. The surrounding neighborhood was shady at best. Our cab driver said the people who live there charge like $20 per car for parking and when the Derby is going on they can make about $6,000 per day. You'd think they could use some of that to touch up their peeling paint and dangling roof shingles. I guess not. 

All in all, we worked hard, had some success and bonded while we were in Kentucky last week. 

New York!

A few weeks ago Mom and I went to New Jersey to meet with the buyers of Babies R Us at the Toys R Us Corporate headquarters. It was a successful meeting, and we were blown away by the magnitude of the Toys R Us facility.

Mom agreed to stay in New Jersey for an extra day so we could spend some time in New York City. We squeezed a ton of fun into a short time--there is so much to do in NYC!

We went to the famous "Magnolia Bakery" on a friends suggestion, and had the most delicious treats. I got a key lime pie (left) and Mom got a coconut cake (right). She said it was the best 7 minute icing she had ever had in her life.

We ate just enough so that we didn't get sick.

We saw this advertisement on top of cab for "mormon.org". The broadway show "Book of Mormon" has brought a lot of attention to the church.

Times Square was wild and crazy, hence my silly face.

We went to the "Buy Buy Baby" store in Times Square and we were happy to spot the Baby Banana Brush on the shelves!

We drank a LOT of diet coke. :)

We did a LOT of walking. Commuting from back and f0rth from Jersey to the City was an ordeal. If we ever get to go back we will try to stay in the city.

The highlight of the trip was seeing "Mary Poppins" on broadway. We both loved it and we were singing the music all night. We also got to see "Sister Act" on broadway, but we both liked Mary Poppins way better. When we got home, we bought the movie and watched it with Dad, and we both decided the play was a million times better than the movie.

Memorial Day

Mom and I took the day off work and drove down to Salt Lake for Memorial Day. We met up with Heather's family for their annual picnic where we ate good food and played with the kids. Then we went to Nana & Papa's gravesite, which was already covered with flowers when we got there. We put little American flag windmills that Nathan had fun with. It was a nice thing to do on Memorial Day, and we have decided to make it our new family tradition.

Graduation(s)

This past Saturday, Mom and I went to my best friend Barbara's graduation from Idaho State University. Although the ceremony was long, we were happy to be there supporting Barbara. It was cool to watch ISU bestow their first ever honorary doctorate to Jakob Dylan, the lead singer of the Wallflowers. (If you are having early-nineties deja-vu, thats because he was really popular about 2 decades ago. For Idaho, a two decade lag in popular culture is pretty standard.) Dylan gave a questionable speech and then made up for it by wowing the audience with a special acoustic song he wrote just for the occasion. It felt like 1996 all over again!

Congratulations Barb!! :)

While we were looking for a camera to use at graduation, we found one that had been missing for over a year--ironically filled with pictures of not only my graduation last year, but Roo's Masters Degree graduation too! Most of you probably never got to see any of these pictures, so I thought I'd post them now. Let me apologize to Annie in advance for posting pictures of her at 9 months pregnant...

Roo graduated with a Masters Degree in Geophysics (I think) from University of Utah in May 2010, and Annie delivered baby Esme just a few weeks later.

I graduated with a Bachelors in Sociology from Idaho State University, also in May 2010.

We don't anticipate anymore graduations until 2013--when Sierra graduates from high school!

Nat's "Tea Party"--an actual tea party, not the political kind. ;)

Its been snowing in Idaho--yes SNOWING--in late April. We needed something to warm our hearts, so we got totally excited for the Royal Wedding!

I decided to throw an English tea party to celebrate the occasion. We had scones, english toffee, "Queen Anne" chocolates, herbal tea and hot chocolate. We also had little chicken salad sandwiches, shrimp, fresh fruit and poundcake. It was a fun girls night!

(Mom was also excited to see my apartment for the first time since I finished decorating it. This is my living room. The camping chair is not part of the redecoration. Hahah.)

We were inspired by Kate Middleton's hats...

We learned that these hats are called "fascinators"...
We set up a little craft station, using glue guns to make our own fascinators out of pipe cleaners, feathers, rhinestones and ribbon! Mom chose red, white, and blue to represent the British colors.
Suzanne, Barbara, Nat and Mom. Thanks for coming over ladies!

(This is on my couch in my living room...we are all squished in there, hence the awkward pose.)

Never a Dull Moment...

Sometimes I worry that I won't have anything to blog about. However, life keeps providing me with lots of material--so I shouldn't worry because it seems that there is never a dull moment!

For example, this morning when I woke up I noticed a little slip of paper under my windshield wiper. At first I thought "dang advertisements. why should I have to recycle when these people can just waste paper". Then, when I saw that the paper was from the police department, I thought "oh great. i can't believe i got ticket. what did I do this time?".

But, the paper just had a phone number and it said "contact me for accident report". I didn't get into an accident, did I? I walked around my car and didn't see anything wrong....until I got to the back and saw this...The bumper is literally just dangling off the left side of the car.
My tail light and break light were shattered, and glass was spread all over the street by my house.
The whole side is actually dented in, almost as high as my window! Its a little hard to tell in these pictures, but the car that hit me was definitely a big one to be able to do that much damage.

I know its hard to tell from these pictures but my car is jacked up. I talked to the police, but a report can't be officially released for like 3 days. They said it was called in as a hit and run, and that it happened at 3:15 in the morning which makes me think we will never find out who did this. I talked to the insurance people, who said that if we can find out who did it then we can hold them liable, but otherwise it has to come out of my pocket. How can people just hit a car and drive away?? Seriously?!