Trader Joe's

I'm a little late to the Trader Joe's party...being that they have been in Des Moines for several years and I've only been there 4 times.  I have a couple of friends who have served me food from Trader Joes and it was delicious!!  I had to start checking it out for myself.  It's such a fun store and relatively inexpensive.  It's small, so I prefer to go without kids, but that's not always possible.  When I do bring them, Rylee pushes the little mini carts they have :)  Today we walked in and the music was playing rather loudly....but it was awesome!!  I heard the theme songs to Scooby Doo, The Flintstones AND Super Mario Brothers (levels 1 and 2)!!  How fun is that?!?!  

The employees are very casual and friendly.  There is always some food and/or drink set out to sample...and I've given into those every time!!  But I found a favorite juice out of one of them...

I have also read that you can ask to sample any item in the store!  How cool, right?!?!

There aren't a ton of choices in the store, but I love knowing that almost anything I buy is fairly healthy for me.  Don't get me wrong...there is plenty there to stay away from, but for the most part it's decent for ya.  I haven't tried a lot of items yet, but so far, here are my favs in addition to the juice above:

This bag of frozen peppers is only $1.60 and already cut up.  I eat a lot of peppers and can get about 6-8 uses from 1 bag.  I don't have to worry about them going bad since they are frozen.

 

And for a non-food item, I really love this!!! A lot!!!

 

I found these fun facts (i'm assuming they are facts) about Trader Joe's online:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/samstryker/trader-joes-is-the-bomb-dot-com#.dmo6Yj7naB

If you haven't been there....check it out!!!  Weekdays are better to go for your first time so you can look around without lots of people in your way.  Happy Shopping :)