We got to West Edmonton Mall and entered the store. I headed for the machine where all the big push strollers are. I was immediately approached by this man with a push stroller and he suggests that I just buy his, rather than wasting my time putting my money in. He even very graciously told me I could just push the 'change' button to get back my toonie I had already put in. How kind of him! *grin* I turned and handed him my six dollars, while my little red flag is going off, but I was too slow to figure it out. *laugh*
As I am walking through the mall I suddenly go, DUH! The guy just scooped six bucks! You know when you are at Save-On Food and someone offers to buy your cart or sell it, it all works out. My brain was thinking this was the same thing. Not! The guy just made six dollars I should have put in the machine. And then to add insult to injury *grin* (I am rather slow it seems!) about an hour later, the other light goes on and I realize it was all a set up!
As we had entered the store, I had seen this guy (older guy) sitting with a child cart and I remember thinking he seemed a bit unusual to have a child cart (older, no child, reading a newspaper). The guy had found the cart and then was making money off the found carts - from suckers like me!! LOL!!
Anyhow we headed off. The boys were so excited to see everthing in the store and I kept telling them that we were clothes shopping today and that tomorrow we would be back to do the fun stuff. They were so obliging!!! We arrived at about 11:30 am and didn't leave until 5:00 pm and all we did was go through clothing shops and of course, eat lunch!
Briton in his Well Paid for Cart
Admiring the Puppies in the Pet Store
I found the most amazing little secret called Orchestra. With a name like that I might well have passed it by. But because I was drawn to the Please Mum sale in one area I was near the Orchestra store. Well, I left Please Mum with nothing - I had already bought a couple gorgeous sundresses at Gap and was looking for something 'different'. I didn't know what different looked like yet, but I knew I would know it when I found it!
I walked in this store and could see immediately that it was *different*!! The clothes were unique and gorgeous!! I was sold. I ended up in there for about 1 hour or more! The owner's son (family run store) was so helpful; he opened last fall's boxes to find me anything that I might like for our girls for this fall. You see, I had seen their clothes and they were unique, but they were also all spring/summer clothes and I was really hoping to find some fall clothes. So he kindly offered to look in last falls boxes!
Then the other saleslady just worked with me the whole time creating outfits and just giving me fashion advice. I got the cutest capri length jean shorts, with a hot pink top, and then under the capris there are these hot pink, turquoise, and white leggings! Oh too cute!! Makes me think of Pippi Longstocking.
Then I got this unbelieveable dress!!!! It is turquiose and lime green, pinafore style with a green under longsleeved shirt, plus these green leggings and cool socks!!
I wish I could post pictures but I can't!! I have to wait to show Corrie these clothes when I go visit her!! Gotta leave here dying to see them!
Then there were these turquoise rainjackets with fleece lining. Oh, so cute!!
And of course, everything I got I got in duplicate. Yep, I look forward to dressing them in sets!
I won't be able to tell you the rest of what I bought, but trust me, cute city!!
Now, these clothes are not Canadian, which is probably why they are so unique!! They are from France. You can see that they are not cookie cutter clothes - which sorry to say, but most of the kid's clothing stores seem to be!
If you are looking for cute, yet modest clothes (and yes, they did have bootie shorts, which we did not buy *grin*), and very special girlish clothes that just say WOW, this is the store!!
Note: I did end up back there the next day and spent another chunk of change, buying 2 pink cardigans, 2 white cardigans, 2 hot pink short skirts, 2 hot pink long pants. So worth it though!
(I will post pictures at some point, for my long distance friends. You MUST see these outfits. The manager told me if I take pictures of the girls in the outfits and send them to him they might make it into the newsletter. If they do then I would get a clothing dollar amount given to me!
And as a 'preferred customer' (read: she spent a wad *grin*) I got 10% off the whole purchase, plus lots was on sale for 30% off. Today, I learned that their mother is over in France right now buying SHOES for their new shoe store. Another branch from the same designers. We are talking about leather, outstitched shoes!! Ohhhhh, I can't wait. I love nice shoes!
And of course, by the next day (tomorrow) I got Sharla there too!! LOL! She ended up buying two of the dresses that I bought, plus a few more outfits.
Oh, I should mention (and I don't have a picture of this, though I should for the girl's lifebook), I really needed to be able to size the girls properly. At the Gap they were very impressed because I was able to tell them the girls centimetre height. I don't think it is normal to walk in and say, Can you help me? My child is 102 cm tall." Huh? LOL!! But they were pleased cause it made it easy to size the girls. They are about a size 4 and 5.
When we got to Orchestra though, their sizes were a little off and it was hard to guess or even go on holding the clothes up against Briton and Cooper - so we had to resort to trying them on again. It was quiet funny when Josiah (on Day 3) said in shock, "Are you buying that for Cooper?" We quickly reassured him that NO - and Cooper said quite loudly and proudly, (like as in - Don't you know??) "It's for MY SISTERS!!" LOL!
After we finally finished shopping, we headed to the car and off to Sharla's we went. We didn't do too badly and got there about 40 minutes later. They were all outside on the trampoline when we arrived and Gracelyn quickly ran over to see us. The kids all clamboured out of the van and it didn't take long before they joined up and took off to play.
The big boys: Cassidy, Dane, Jonah and McKenzie took off to the forest to play Air Soft. You can imagine how happy our boys were as they don't get to do this very often!!
The children immediatley hit it off. Cooper and Josiah linked up, Austin and Gracelyn, and then Briton and Eliana were both a little bit small to hook up, but they did play with the other younger ones really nicely.
Later on, we put the little ones to bed and the four older boys all played a couple board games, while Sharla and I sat and got to know each other better. It was really fun. By midnight we finally hit the hay.
The four older boys really had a fun cause they got to put down mattresses and camp in the basement together! A real campout for guys. Sharla has an enormous house and is so welcoming. It is wonderful.
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