Well I finally made it! I left on time at 9:15am on Thursday morning but was back at the house 10 minutes later as I had taken the wrong pair of shoes with me!

The journey to Heathrow as uneventful and I was there in plenty of time for my flight. I met up with Fee at the airport as we were fluing together and sharing a room at the Doubletree Guest Suites in Annaheim.

The flight was ok, a bit of turbulence but nothing too bad. I read some of my book; The Secret Life of Bees and watched Mama Mia and The Duchess on the in flight entertainment. Food was ok, Beef Strogonoff which I love but they served it with mashed potatoes... bizarre!

 When we arrived at LAX we cleared customs and caught the Disneyland Express to Annaheim and checked in. We were too tired to bother with dinner so just stopped at a 7-11 for milk (to go with the tea bags I bought with me!) dorritos and pringles - nothing like a healthy meal to sort out the jet lag!

Our hotel room is nice, excuse the odd colour on the picture of the seating area - I blame the jet lag :)

Friday:

Well today was my day for recovering from the journey. It is RAINING here in California - can you believe it?! Both Fee and I are suffering the effects of jet lag, we went out shopping, came back at 4:30pm and put our feet up and bth fell asleep. We woke up and went out to get dinner from Dennys at 11:15pm!  

Saturday: 

A rainy day in California! We had an earlyish breakfast as Fiona had a class booked for the day. I went to the Convention Centre to pick up my badge and was surprised to note that the CHA Guide Book was not there - they have been delayed and will arrive tomorrow I hope. Another change is that they are only using four halls this time and new exhibitors are in with everyone else, although they are grouped together. In previous years all the new exhibitors have been in a separate hall from the rest but I guess either it was more cost effective to have them in the main halls or they wanted to give my feet a break!!!

 Came out of the Convention Centre to find it was pouring with rain so got absolutely soaked on the way back to the hotel and had to get changed .

Next port of call was a visit to Prima Marketing in Chino which is about half an hour away.

Loved looking round their warehouse and better still was leaving with a box of product. I also got to see some of the new items, below are the new Prima Fiesta flowers which are gorgeous in real life: