2/5/09 Our HUGE Shopping Trip

Today Ann and I went to .......

Ann, bless her little heart, has really taken over the kitchen duties. She sits with the responsible team and makes up menus and gets/shares recipes, makes the shopping lists, goes shopping with me and then pretty much runs the kitchen on the day of the event. I would be lost, absolutely lost without Ann. Well, maybe that's a little extreme, I'm sure the other team members could very well pull off a luncheon or dinner from start to finish but with Ann having owned a restaurant, well, its just so much easier with her on board... for everyone concerned.

We got on the road around 10 and headed for Sam's Club in Chandler about 30 miles away. It was a beautiful day for a ride and we enjoyed good conversation that didn't have anything to do with Activities or even Quail Run.

We arrived, clipboard in hand, pockets bulging with 20's, intent on getting lots of food for all the February food events. I believe we have six this month.

Our first is the Volunteer's Breakfast on the 9th which will be French Toast and bacon, fruit cup, orange juice and coffee. On the 13th is our Valentine's Dinner/Dance. This is a very big deal for Quail Run. This is the one where we serve a sit down dinner. I talked with quite a few of the residents who attended the dinner last year and asked what their ideas for dinner were. I was surprised to find out that they wanted the same thing we had last year. Pork loins! They must have really liked them and I don't blame them, that was a good dinner. We'll make some things different from last year but pork loins it is! We've got a hamburger night this year, a taco night, a fashion show luncheon and the Olympics luncheon. Lots of food and lots of shopping to do today.

We both manned one of the big carts they have in Sam's Club and started loading them up. We did our best to load them according to what meal the items went to. In no time at all we had filled two carts and went for two more and we weren't even half way through the shopping list yet nor had we even visited the frozen food or meat sections!

Shopping could have gone a little bit faster than it did but we just had to stop at each place where free samples were given out. We were actually on a first name basis with the strawberry shortcake sample lady. Meet Pinky! We went back to her samples table more than a few times! She said she didn't care she was paid to give out samples if it was to different people or to the same people over and over again. Don't get me wrong its not like we went there five times or anything! We restrained ourselves after the fourth visit. After all, Pinky and her strawberry shortcakes weren't the only game in town.

Have you priced coffee lately? What in the world happened to the price of coffee? Not too long ago I was paying five and change for a large can of the stuff. Today the price was over nine bucks a can! I'm glad Bob is the only coffee drinker in this house!

Aisle after aisle we marked things off the list, changed menus in midstream and made other adjustments along the way. Two more carts filled, we needed another one.

We finally made it to the stuff in the fridges and we were stumped. One of the recipes called for so many pints of sour cream. Hey, no problem,,,,or so we thought. Sour cream was sold in a five pound container! We knew we needed 17 pints and not a clue how many pints made up a pound, neither one of us knew how to do the conversion. We even had a conversion chart with us and it wasn't on there. We asked a couple of the workers there and none of them knew how to convert it either. Then we heard this voice say, "A pint is a pound the world around". Ann and I looked at each other and then in the direction of "the voice". "What did you say?" I asked. The elderly lady repeated, "A pint is a pound the world around". It was just by luck that this dear lady was in the aisle the same time we were with this dilemma and had the answer we needed. If she wasn't we would still be there!

Frozen bag after frozen bag we loaded into our carts and it was on to the meat department. We wanted LARGE pork loins. Since we are feeding nearly 200 people you can imagine how many of these we needed. Thank heaven for case prices!

It was finally time for check out. Our tummies were full with all the free samples and our five carts were overloaded.

Bill was our checkout guy and he was very patient. We checked out one meal at a time. Everything for the Valentine's dinner is on one receipt. Everything having to do with Taco night, again, one receipt. This will make it so much easier for me later when I have make an accounting of the funds received and the funds spent.

One mistake we made along the way was not keeping track of how much money we were spending. As the "meals" were totaled I started to panic. Would I have enough money? I had brought just $840.00 with me. Well, the shopping gods must have been with us because we had enough for everything except one item. Thankfully, it wasn't a have to have item, just a nice to have on hand item. I put it aside with no qualms whatsoever.

Now the fun would begin. We had to get five and a half carts, basket and bottom rack worth of stuff in Ann's ....are you ready for this.....midsize Chevy Impala.

Here's Bill, our very patient check out guy, helping us get our purchases to the door.

We've got to get all this and more in Ann's car!

Ann packs the coolers with pork loins.

(Note to Billy) Doesn't she look like Vi?

Ann is a very good trunk packer! She is determined to use every square inch of her trunk!

She is so proud of how much she got in there!

Next came the back seat.

We stashed the little stuff in every nook and cranny and didn't even have to resort to using the front seat floor. Well, not until we made our last stop at Walmart.

It was a fun day. It was an expensive day. And its not the last time we'll have to do this, this year. Ann, you are the best! Thanks for all you do for the Activities Team!