Rose Bowl Flea Market - 40 before 40

One of the things on my 40 before 40 list was to go to the Rose Bowl Flea Market.  I have been hearing and reading about this flea market for years!  Since I am a girl with a love for vintage, shabby and white decor this was the place for me!  And it did not disappoint!

The Flea Market is ever 2nd Sunday of the month.  If you go in July (like we did) make sure you take a hat, your own bottled water and snacks.  A bottle of water was $3 for a small (very, very small) and $5 for a large.  The only food they had was sparse and included hot dogs, frozen lemonade, and I saw one pretzel vendor - yuck.

(vintage 50's table cloth made into a darling pillow & french linen pillows)

If you are going for the vintage and antique items they are in their own section off to the side so be sure and ask which way to go.  We saw them when we were coming in so it wasn't hard to find.  Everyone was so friendly and helpful and pleasant to talk to.  You could tell they love selling their wares and we sure enjoyed poking around their booths.  No one minded that I took pictures and even encouraged it when I told them it was for my blog.

 (end tables and coffee tables & beautiful ornate frames)

You need to bring cash - it is all they accept.  No cash, no service.  The sun was hot and I noticed that once a piece was sold the vendor would cover the piece with a blanket to protect it or if they had a large truck would move the piece into the truck or shade.  You could take the piece right then or if it was too large and you wanted to continue to shop you could come back later and most vendors would help you carry it out to the loading area.  It was a very easy process.  The rest of the flea market that wrapped around the "bowl" was filled with artisans selling homemade items, hats, lotions and potions, jewelery, hair accessory items, among other things normally sold at flea markets.

(A whole booth of my favorite kind of furniture! & 

the most beautiful ornate armoire I have ever seen!)

We brought my friend Chelsa's Volvo for the sole purpose of making it impossible to bring anything large home. (like that armoire above) My main reason for coming to the flea market was to see and enjoy not spend money and cram more furniture into my house.  If you knew my husband you would know that I am not allowed to bring any more furniture into this house.  That's the standard rule.  So I look, take pictures and enjoy things that way.  Believe me - it saves a lot of money haha.

(Laundry basket- like Mrs. Meers)

I saw people pushing these laundry baskets around and was dying!  Can you just see this in your laundry room?  It's a whole lot of laundry basket love!  My girls could push this around the house gathering laundry up making laundry fun! But alas, I have no room at home for it nor did I have room in the car.  Here's the kicker....the guy was selling them for $60.  When we were looking at them we noticed that they had my last name printed on the side of each one.  MY LAST NAME!  It was meant to be!  We told the guy and he said, "for you I'll give it to you for $40."  I'm sure I could have talked him even lower but there was just no room to put it.  (I have very good buying restraint)

We saw a ton of mouth watering vintage items and we also saw a few questionable items like:

Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear

What in the world?

A Christmas tree on blue velvet made entirely of old jewelry.  

Gosh...I just don't know how I walked away from this!

And the best thing we saw on our whole trip.....a box of used dentures and real teeth! 

On the box it said," offers over $500- considered.  Please ask permission to look.

Ummm.......I don't know about you but this is the.most.disgusting.thing.EVER!

I think this wraps up my two day trip to L.A.  I think it took more days to post about the trip than I was actually gone haha.  I had so much fun and will be going back!

Get-A-Way

Our Trip to L.A. was so much fun. For Christmas Tom got some of the partners in his firm to give the wives a trip to see Wicked. It was so fun to get to know Nicole and Allison better and to spend time with Monica. Mindy was supposed to come but her whole family was VERY sick so she had to cancel at the last minute. We missed her! As you can see these pictures are of FOOD! What's better than taking pictures of food? (Monica and Mindy have SOOO rubbed off on me) I just had to because it was so yummy! That artichoke was the best one I have ever had, and I have eaten A LOT of artichokes in my day. I did grow up right next to the Artichoke Capitol of the World.

It was Nicole's birthday on Tuesday and her birthday dinner was fabulous! I was so hungry and everything hit the spot. Too bad we didn't have time to get any dessert. After eating we had to rush to our hotel, leave our car with the valet with specific instructions to NOT drive it away and ran to our room for a record dress change of 7 min. Hair, make-up and change of clothes - yes we girls CAN be fast if we want to! Then off to the theater we went - btw it takes longer to get there than what map quest says.

The show was perfect, the theater amazing! and the company fabulous. Thanks for a fun trip girls. I had a blast!

Other things that happened, driving around for donuts as big as your head, looking for movie stars, navigating the L.A. freeways, shopping in the rain and searching for the perfect purse (which I found-thank you), cooing at the sweet baby that came with us who didn't make a peep the whole time, room service fit for a queen, eating breakfast with Dave Foley, driving PAST Rodeo Drive but not driving ON Rodeo Drive, seeing the L.A. temple twice, watching the most expensive cars drive up to the building across the street from our room and then be valeted and wondering what was in that building?? Running on the stars down Hollywood Blvd barefoot while laughing uncontrollable and trying to put on my jacket so I could get to the show on time, reading O.K. magazine and finding out Mc Steamy was in West Hollywood the same time we were - DARN-IT! Saying "harrowing" more than a few times during the trip.

I would love to go back and tool around to see things I didn't get to see. Anyone want to go with me???


(Is that the fanciest room service table ever? The best part was the guy came in, set it all up right in front of the TV. So at 1am we were eating and watching Seinfeld - what could be better?)

MIA

No, I haven't been lazy, too busy or even under the weather. I've been gone, out of town, MIA!
Tom had a business trip in LA over the weekend so his girls decided to tag along. Such fun!!
Boy was it nice to get out of the heat for a few days. I didn't even mind the 6 hour drive. We would walk out of our hotel (which BTW was the Hilton Suites in Orange for $46. a night - Yah, I'm that good on priceline!) and the girls were always a little surprised the air wasn't going to suck them dry and the sun wasn't going to burn their flesh. Bitter? No not at all!

We had a nice relaxing time. Favorite things we did?
1. Saw Ratatouille. Poor Abby has been so excited about this movie for a week. We went to the 7:15 show and after ALL the previews and 15 min of the movie she said....."this is a long movie!" and crawled into her daddy's lap and fell asleep. Poor little thing.
2. Went bowling in the poshest bowling alley ever! Check out the pictures of this place! WOW!!
3. Went to Huntington Beach. That would have been my favorite part but........it was over crowded, cold, windy and I had crying kids the whole time. So, I did get my beach fix but it wasn't the most pleasant experience! I do love the sound of the waves crashing onto the sand though!
4. I ate french toast at Denny's! 1, french toast is my favorite! 2, Denny's reminds me of being a kid. And I haven't eating french toast in.......I can't remember due to the fact that I can't have milk but it WAS totally worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So yummy!!!!
5. Tom & I and the girls went shopping downtown in the LA Fashion District. I think I created a monster in Tom. He LOVED it! I think it's because he got a new suit for $50 and we got Abby heeleys for $15. We had so much fun walking and shopping. Cassidy said, "every time we come to LA we HAVE to come here! This is the best!!!" She's the fashionista of the family for sure!

It was three days of cool weather, fun times with the fam and it was worth every minute in the car to and from!