Ikea, foo.

What the...?

She's joking right? There's no way she can possibly put us through another post about Ikea.

...right?

I'm afraid she can and she will, friends. This place is a 1.5 hour drive (3 hours both ways). It takes planning, snacks, and Duck Tales on DVD in the back seat to make that happen. It's Ikea, foo. It's an event.

Maybe it's time you start hoping that we land in a city closer to an Ikea, huh?

I don't know why I think it is so fun. Wait, what am I saying--yes I do! It is so fun! There is a restaurant (don't worry, we don't eat the meatballs), rooms set up using their stuff so you can learn how to put furniture in a room (harder than it looks), really cheap stuff that looks modern/cool and breaks down enough to fit in the back of our Civic, and everything has Swedish names like Billy and Expedit. It is a grown-up wonderland.

We went because Charlie needed a mattress for his new "big boy bed" but you know us--any excuse will do. Since we got there around lunchtime we headed up the stairs to the restaurant first. On the way in we saw some images of Sweden and made some jokes about Wallander being depressed (we've been watching it on Netflix lately) and then I noticed a sign with a heartwarming picture on it and shouted something to the effect of, "THE CAKE IS HERE!" because it was an advertisement for one of the best parts of Ikea. They don't serve this every day:

So I got one.

I shared a little bit with Steve.

He shared some cesar salad and fries with me, too. He is better at sharing than I am. (He's not mad here, he just gets very contemplative when he eats salad. Also, take a moment to appreciate Gracie's "goggles.")

I packed the kids lunch. For some reason they are both boycotting chicken nuggets right now. Maybe because they had too many on the numerous road trips of 2012?

Then we went downstairs to the one hour play-daycare place. (Yes. Ikea has a mini-DAYCARE.) And Gracie was finally tall enough to go in! She was so excited. We signed her in and she played and played, and we only had to chase Charlie through the store as we admired all the pretty rooms.

I think I want to just live in an Ikea, maybe?

Charlie enjoyed being an only child, because it meant he didn't have to sit in a cart. His favorite things were (1) to run away from us/climb on something and (2) to stand quietly and watch the durability demonstrations as something mechanical pummeled a chair or opened and closed a drawer (one of his personal favorite pastimes is to open and close drawers and doors, so add a machine to that and boy howdy, is it up his alley!)

We ended up taking home a mattress, a pillow, two coordinated-but-not-matching bedding sets for the kids (we are thinking of bunking their new-to-us beds if we downsize when we move), Swedish fish, some chocolate, and cinnamon roll.

I don't have to say it, I know, but man, I love Ikea.