My First Order From Azure Standard

OK, I know this picture is probably about the worst one I ever posted. One of the kids had messed with the settings on the camera and my techy guru was away in Europe and couldn't help me and I was trying to take a "quick" picture while the kids were happily playing outside, blah, blah, blah!

Crummy photography aside, this is a picture of my very first order from Azure Standard:

• 50 pounds of whole wheat pastry flour
• 50 pounds of quick oats
• 25 pounds of black beans
• 25 pounds of split peas
• 25 pounds of lentils
• 5 pounds of milk powder

I had heard about this place from another blog when we lived in Louisiana and was really excited to order, but became dismayed when I found out they actually don't deliver to Louisiana.  When we moved to California, I was thrilled to place an order.  The whole process was pretty simple.  I called the company, and they gave me the phone numbers of a couple of people in Huntington Beach.  One woman gave me the drop location number and I just placed my own order online to come to that drop location.  (Each individual has to have an order totaling $50 or more and each drop location has to have an order totaling $550 or more.)

Now, here's where things got a little crazy.  I had planned to go pick up the order on Wednesday but then got a call on Tuesday evening about 6:00 from the woman saying that the truck was going to arrive between 8:00 and 8:30 pm on Tuesday!  So, I fed, bathed and pajamaed the kids and loaded everyone in the car to go to Huntington Beach.  I got there about 7:45 pm, but then the driver didn't actually arrive until 8:45 pm.  Hurray for the Story of the World and for kids who sleep in the car!  When the driver arrived, he unloaded and separated everyone's stuff.  The other customers were very kind and carried and loaded my stuff for me.  Once we had everything loaded, we headed home.  Fortunately, the kids transferred well from the car to their beds:)

I hadn't thought about how exactly I was going to store all the stuff I bought ahead of time.  I divided the beans into small ziploc bags (about one pound in each bag) and have them in a locked cabinet (so the boys don't play with them).  I bought some storage containers from Costco for the flour and the quick oats.  I am really happy with how the whole process worked out and will definitely order from them in the future, but I don't think we'll be needing anything for quite some time:)