Monday, September 21, 2009
Stories from Vegas Volume 1
This past week, Scotian and I travelled to Las Vegas for the annual ABC Kids Expo. I was daunted by the task of getting ready, getting organized, booking hotels, and making sure the store would run smoothly while I was gone. Luckily the latter was the least of my worries - the ladies that work with me are some of the most talented and hardworking women I have had the pleasure of meeting.
On the recommendation of Tamara at Parenting By Nature, we booked a room at The Venetian Hotel, Casino and Resort and off we went.
We left Sackville, New Brunswick, where my parents live and where the kids were staying, at 3:30 am for a 6 am flight out of Moncton. Immediately after my dad drove away from the departure terminal, we realized we left our sunglasses and our Klean Kanteen water bottles in the car. Scotian was really upset - all of that travelling, a hot climate, and we didn't have our water bottles! We arrived in Toronto and I was happy to see the International Breastfeeding Symbol being used in the airport - go Toronto!
It was a very long and tiring trip, and it was all we could do to have a shower and fall asleep immediately on arrival. The next morning, we walked the 3 km to the Convention Centre, only to find out just how hot Las Vegas can be!
The ABC Kids Expo is enormous - with over 600 exhibitors, it spans 2 full floors and according to one person, all of the NFL football fields could fit inside this centre. It's enormous. Anxious to get going, I had my floor plan and my list of booths to visit. Among the first was the Klean Kanteen booth. Not only do they have some really cool products coming out later this fall, but after hearing about leaving our water bottles in the car, they kindly gave Scotian and I each a new water bottle. We were tickled - and well hydrated! Second on my list was Bummis. I order from Bummis almost weekly for the store, and was so excited to finally meet Betsy, one of the owners. Betsy has been so encouraging over the years, and sent me a personal email last year after hearing my interview on CBC's Sounds Like Canada while sitting in traffic. It was so nice to put a face to the name, and also meet Dayna, the customer service rep who handles my (what seems like) hundreds of emails!
We had a nice chat about Bummis products, talking about the launch of their new website, their new Point of Purchase display (watch for its arrival at Nurtured soon), and the future of cloth diapering. It was inspiring and I was so excited to find just how down to earth Betsy is - arriving at the trade show in a pair of Lululemon yoga pants and tank top.
That day we also spoke with many new suppliers, and placed a number of orders of very cool products for the fall/Christmas season for the store: Hape Toys, including some wooden kitchens, play food, puzzles, and other very cool things...and some things I'll announce later - I don't want to let all of the excitement out of the bag at once!
One of my favourite visits was to the Beco Baby Carrier where I had the pleasure of meeting inventor Gaby Caperon and some of her staff. Gaby is an incredibly nice, and very funny lady. I had a good laugh talking with her, and we had a nice chat about the upcoming prints for 2010. Some very cool stuff in the works for Beco!
Scotian and I managed to take transit back to our hotel, where we had a delicious meal at Tao Restaurant. THE.BEST.SUSHI. I have ever eaten. Fish that melted in my mouth. It was so good! Definitely worth the splurge.
After a full day, we "hit the showers" and crashed into a deep sleep...more stories to follow in volume 2 - meeting some heavy hitters in the cloth diaper industry.
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