Weekend Recap.

Friday we went to Dinner and a Movie with some friends of ours. We ate at Cheesecake Factory, but ended up not having any cheesecake - bummer, seems pointless to eat there without eating any cheesecake, but anyway - and we saw Step Brothers. The movie was okay, there were definitely some funny parts and I laughed quite a bit, but overall I don't feel like there was enough story line to keep me entertained for a full hour and a half. Meh.

Saturday we made the pilgrimage to IKEA! I've been wanting to go since they opened a store in Ohio several months back, but the wedding planning got in the way, both energy and money that we were spending on that, so this was my very first trip!

The one major issue with our trip was that we didn't understand the upstairs "showroom" vs. downstairs "store" dynamic. First, we went upstairs, which as far as I know you have to do, and we were completely assaulted by stuff EVERYWHERE! To be honest, I don't like the showroom setup at all. Everything snakes around and leads into one another, so I felt a little like I was trapped in a very strange dream.

For those who have never been there, the upstairs is comprised of small rooms (maybe 6ft x 6ft?) that are completely decked out decorated with all the fixins. There are probably 50-75 of these little rooms all connected to one another basically. It's like going through a bunch of little houses, very strange, trapping experience. Also, it's not JUST a showroom, there are also displays of stuff that you can buy. We spent a lot of time walking around up there because it's very hard to shop when things are set up that way unless you are willing to say, okay, I want this entire room. I think not.

We made our way slowly through the jungle of mini-rooms and we eventually ended up at a staircase that led downstairs. We had found the Real IKEA, woohoo! I was very skeptical about the store until I made it downstairs, then I had found the real thing! I loved it! There is so much selection, their prices really are great, I found tons that I wanted to buy and we ended up purchasing quite a bit! The only drawback was that we had spent so much time upstairs, that we were tired by the time we made it downstairs. I got a second wind, but H, not so much. Although, to give him props he didn't complain too much, he was quite the trooper!

Our two big purchases that we basically went there to purchase in the first place are a new bookshelf for the family room (to replace the smaller one that we currently have), and curtains for the kitchen (to replace the vertical blinds). We also purchased, some nifty storage things, a metal board that I'm planning to cover with fabric, a really cool rack system for the kitchen, and various decor items including a piece for the kitchen table, and decorative pillows for our bed. It was a wonderful trip, checking out was a madhouse - picture a Saturday at Wal-mart x 3 - but it was worth it! We'll definitely be going back at some point.

Sunday, it was so nice outside, I was able to have the windows open! Quite the treat for August in Ohio. I did laundry and folded a mountain as large as our bed - while the animals were running around ON THE CLOTHES in Kitteh's case! ::shakes head:: Mark finished up painting the cabinets, got the drawers back in, and cleaned up the countertops!!! I'm so excited to have my kitchen back to semi-order, but of course we are still waiting to receive the hinges to get the doors back up. Those should be here any day, then we will really be in business. I changed out all of the linens on our bed, including getting the new duvet set on there, I'll have to get a pic. And we finished the weekend off with chocolate shakes at 9PM, Mark's idea of course ; )

It was a wonderful and productive weekend, but it went by too fast. I can't believe it's Monday already!