Another trip to Ikea

A few weekends ago Kirsten and I went to Ikea with Ben & Ashley who had a fat stack of wedding cash burning a hole in their collective pocket. Kir and I were on more of a reconnaissance mission - checking out stuff for that time when we'll have a few more people running around the house. We looked at cribs and dressers, curtains and towels, duvet covers and light fixtures. I think we spent about $40 - which just might be the smallest amount we've ever spent there. We got a couple things obviously, my favorite was Bilar - candy cars made out of this marshmallow type stuff. We purchased some bowls, a couple cutting boards and some markers for the kids Kirsten nannies.

We headed out on Saturday morning and made our way to the store by 11:00 and started our way around the store. We found out early that Ashley is indeed small enough to fit inside that goofy children's Mork from Ork chair. Then we made our way up to the cafeteria where I avoided the meatballs and in the process avoided crippling diarrhea. I had potato & cheese perogies - I didn't know that they were Swedish. Then again I didn't know what a RÖNÖ was or that Ikea sold deadly weapons. Jeff and Heidi had a family member get married that same weekend and they were in PA on Friday - so Saturday after the wedding they drove a few hours west and stayed at the lovely Holiday Inn Greentree where we were also staying, just a few short minutes from Ikea. Getting to the store so early in the day had worn us out - that and Ben and Ashley were out late the night before - Ben was playing bass in Andy Dolson's band. So we went back to the hotel and Ben & Ashley fell asleep. Kirsten & I were awake enough to be slightly interested in Curling and tired enough to not change the channel. After naptime we decided to go get dinner - being in a city that we're not usually in we decided to go to one of the local places. We wanted to avoid eating at some place that we could go to any day of the week so we picked a place called Fat Heads. We picked Fat Heads because they had a pretty good looking menu and 39 beers on draft. We drove into the city found the restaurant and drove around for another 10 minutes looking for a parking spot. We found one, 3 blocks away, which wouldn't have been that big of a deal except it was one of those times when winter decided to visit us. It was really cold, and once we made our way to Fat Heads we were pretty glad to be inside. So glad in fact that we decided we would wait the "a little over an hour" that the hostess told us we'd have to wait before we could get a table. Well, about 135 minutes later we sat down at a table and the senior citizen they had assigned to our table as a waitress shuffled by with her walker and took our order. Our food came about 30 minutes after we ordered and we woke up and ate it. Then we ran through the cold back to where we had parked Ferguson, fired up the engine and drove back to the hotel. Where Jeff and Heidi had been hanging out for a few hours partaking of the gourmet room service. The next morning we woke up, got ready to and went down to Jeff & Heidi's room then headed out to get some breakfast. We were going to go to Cracker Barrel and have some home cookin' but apparently everybody else wanted home cookin'. So we decided to have America's other favorite place for breakfast - McDonald. That's where we saw this zooming by to the drive-thru line. We weren't sure that we actually saw what we saw so I headed over to the other side of the restaurant and snapped a couple pictures as this Buick LeSabre rolled by. In case you couldn't see what we saw, through the power of technology I have enhanced the photos to give you some more detail. Yep - that's a dummy. Wearing a red ball cap, blue blockers and sporting a sweet beard made out of what looks like dog hair. I 've heard about this stuff where elderly widows put one of these things in the front seat to look like they aren't alone. Notice that they have him safely strapped into a seat belt. How nice - I wonder if they got him an Egg McMuffin too? Notice again -what looks like three heads. I'd guess that there are two brains and one of them is in the back seat. Crazy part of this is I've seen this guy before. He works security at Don Sitts on Front St. in Cuyahoga Falls. Apparently they gave him the weekend off, hopefully he got a more comfortable chair - something like a TVÅÅKER or my favorite, the classic POÄNG. I know Don Sitts is a great dealership and they seem to have pretty good business, our families have bought over 12 vehicles from them. But, I think they could get the guy a nicer chair to sit in - I mean he does sit there all night keeping an eye on things. Just an idea.

After breakfast we went back to Ikea, Ben and Ashley bought some pretty cool stuff and we ended putting some of it together that night after church. I do have to say that taking a camera is a great idea when you go to Ikea, you never know when you're going to want to capture a special memory. Like some random person trying out a mattress. Ahh, the wonders of Swedish design - looks comfortable huh?