Glad you were able to get in to Costco for a cool down. Not sure what is up with this weather but it is HOT! I am proud of you for attempting the Desert Botanical Gardens despite the heat.

B2U - re: jelly bellies. Your Sweet Tooth is showing.

Erin - I get half vanilla and half chocolate at the snack bar. Perfect treat in every season.

Doydie - Costco is very similar to Sam's Club. In my neighborhood, we have both within a mile of each other. MANY of the same food and food non products are offered. My perception is that Costco is a bit higher quality and the marketing of products is better at Costco.

MrsD - I have been to TWO different Chihuli exhibitions. One inside and one at the Desert Botanical Gardens. If you go to my profile page, you can see a few of the art pieces I saw. Fun stuff.

Earl - DH goes to either Costco or Sam's Club every week to buy my supplies for breads. I need huge bags of flour/eggs/oil/sugar. Sam's has the blocks of yeast I use. When it comes to a choice of which I prefer, Costco is my "hands down" choice.

Dej - Buying in large bulk does save money. It is the marketing that gets me to spend on something I do not need. I have a huge container of tepenade! I did not go there for that!

TwoKidsTwoCats - I went to the very first Price Club. It originated in San Diego. The original owner lived in San Diego. I had just moved there and my brother was a member. I got a color TV. This was back in 1978.

tkrik - I thought I could handle the heat of the morning. I was just hoping it would be cool ENOUGH. I also wanted to check out zeroscape plants because I am designing my backyard (in my head and not from my purse) and I was hoping to talk to people that actually could help me figure out what I could do if I ever had money for such luxuries!

Ah, that is the trick! You need to be disciplined to go in one of those places. I have a list, and stick to it...for the most part. I ask myself several questions before buying something not on the list. A. would I use this? would this amount of stuff last me 3 years, or is it just enough for my needs? B. where would I store it? is there room in the freezer, or cabinet for it? C. will it go bad before we can finish it? Will we eat 1/5 and then be bored with it? D. do we need the super duper size package? I find sometimes just stepping back and picturing it in my everyday life is enough to make me put it back.

Its a wonderful world to go play in tho. From sno mobiles, to trampolines, and gianormous stalks of broccoli! The neighborhood size tins of chocolate! mmmm...chocolate! The laundry deterent big enough to run a laundry with. Shampoo for the whole block. I find that I use normal sized containers to pour the massive sizes into. When I am empty, I refill from the big boy size. This way I dont have a gallon drum of shampoo in my tub. I would drop it for sure.

I bought my digital camera there at Costco.

I used to just have the membership for my SAMe supplement, which used to be so expensive. The money I saved in 3 mos paid the membership.

We have purchased gardening supplies, plants, a few books, printers, and drinks (they have diet Snapple), Chicken nuggets frozen,
and bagels (Baked daily Einstein bagels) and fresh produce.
Costco has a beef cut called Tri Tip...which is very close to Flat Iron in tenderness. Also I get our chicken breasts, and salmon there. They have a large rotesserie chicken baked, for 4.99 that lasts us 3 days! (with kitty cat scraps!). So I typically go on Sat for that. Kroger's in comparison has a tiny chicken, that is tough, dried out for $7.99.

When my son was in college, we'd get his meat frozen, and veggies for him to store in the little freezer we got him. Saved much money this way compared to college store prices.

I just found a super size Ming Tsai rice chip snack (new from Kellogg's) there. They have 110 cals for 30 chips and are very low fat and whole grain. But alas like Costco does, they were not there this weekend!

I found some nice water shoes there this season...sturdy and good for rocky terrain! (Speedo brand).

It seems Costco doesn't keep their stock as stable as SAMs does. We have both memberships, because our Costco closed for 5 months and I was forced to SAMs. SAMs has much more variety, but different things than Costco.

I loved your photos, Aarcyn. Those sculptures look fantastic in that setting!

I buy the huge jars of almonds and cashews...neuro told me to eat almonds every day...
they also have a great selection of wine...and their filet mignon and pork roasts are great.

Was Price Club the same thing as PACE? (another Costco-like store) There was a PACE here in Omaha in the mid to late 1980s. (it was near 108th and Dodge if you remember how to get around in Omaha) They changed the name in the early 90s...it became Sam's Club!

We still have plastic tote boxes that say PACE on the side that my dad used to get there. (black plastic, no lids) We used one of them to plant jalapenos and green peppers in earlier this summer. Made a nice little planter.

Edited to add:

I got curious, so I googled PACE and Price Club...found a Wikipedia entry for them! Seems most of the bulk shopping places are all related to each other in their origins somehow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warehouse_club

Erin, I think it was PACE not Price Club. I remember there was talk of it merging with Price Club(costco), but they went with Sam's instead. We moved to TX before they did that.

I never could get the hang of navigating Omaha. I use to drive to Pappillion to a grocery store that had good prices and rebate forms! I remember a Pontiac dealership on Farnam? that was near PACE. I mostly stayed at Offutt or Bellevue for shopping. DO they still have Shopko there... it was just north of Bellevue...I think?!

CYN, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it being 100 in AZ and it was 30 here in north AL this morning! Did you fully recover from being in the heat yesterday?? Good thing for Costco being so handy!!

Costco recently opened their first store in Australia. It's in a different state to me so I've only seen it on TV, but there was a need for something like it here.

I'm sure it'll do very well.

There are still Shopko's here. I think there's one in Papillion, and there's one in West Omaha that I havent been to in a few years (they're a bit overpriced I think) I cant remember if Bellevue has a Shopko now or not. I havent been into Bellevue for about a year now. But, like I said, Shopko's a bit overpriced, and where I live we have a Target and a Kmart within a half mile of my house and a Walmart about 2 or 3 miles away. Easier to get to for me. I havent been to Target in awhile tho because they remodeled and their lights are so harsh that it ticks off my optic nerve and makes me want to rip my eyeballs out thru my nose.

I think there was a Chevy dealership near Pace...it was just a few businesses over from the McDonald's that I worked at in the 90s. (that McD's was on 114th and Dodge...they tore it down a couple of months ago to rebuild a new McD's, which is good because when I worked there, the walls were rotting out...and I left there in 96.)

I kind of liked PACE before Sam's took it over. I remember they occasionally used to sell crochet and knitting kits of yarn that came with a pattern for an afghan. Bought one of two of them, that was always fun. You dont see the big box places carrying stuff like that anymore.

It's always fun to go to Sam's and Costco. Especially during sample time. Love the samples. That's where we fell in love with these pita crackers that we munch on all the time. To the point that we buy a new box almost everytime we go there now. (both Sam's and Costco carry the crackers, just different flavors)

We bought a new vacuum at Costco a few weeks ago. Got an Oreck. Our cleaning lady was happy about that. She uses a Dyson for most of the houses she cleans at, but a couple of her customers want her to use their Orecks to do their carpets. So, she edges the carpet with her Dyson, and then does the rest of the floor with the customer's Orecks. So, we're probably going to let her do that at our house too. (she prefers the Dyson for going around the edges for some reason...plus she can use the Dyson on wood and tile floors, which you cant do with most Oreck's.)

The Oreck cost us $300 at Costco...same vacuum at the Oreck dealer was about $100 more.