An IKEA kind of day

I wasn't going to post anything tonight

because I left my camera over at Nick & Rachel's
apartment and only had Mr. Jones' pictures to work with!
He's a really good photographer, but ... he has been
pretty consumed with his newborn granddaughter;
hence, he misses some good shots.
I called over to the apartment,
and Nick was able to upload my pictures
and then e-mail them to us (ah, technology!).
So I decided to go ahead and tell you about our day;

however, after going to all of this trouble to e-mail
my pictures, I STILL managed to upload them
to my blog in an incorrect order ...
but I'll explain that as I go along.

We decided to do IKEA today!

I've never been to an IKEA store and I LOVE to shop,
so I was totally agreeable!
They serve a 99 cent breakfast of scrambled eggs,
fried potatoes (yum!) and bacon -- all for 99 cents!
Wow, that's just as good a deal as a Matchbox car!
Here is Young Mr. Jones enjoying his fried potatoes
Beautiful baby Nia was content to lay in Rachel's arms
and sleep through most of breakfast
After breakfast, we shopped ...
but mostly we PLAYED :)

IKEA is a cool furniture, home improvement,
kitchen, appliance, toy store kind of place.

Nathan had a blast running around
and trying out all of the neat stuff.
See the playmat the tent is on?
I bought one for $14.99 to bring home to Grand Rapids.
Once I clean our basement (which may take months)
half of it is going to be a play room
(the other half is for grandpa's trains).
Anyway, this playmat will be wonderful
for all of the little grandkids to play cars and trucks on.

Okay. Here's where the pictures are out of order!
SORRY!

We shopped for quite a long time --
all the way until lunch!
So we also ate a very good, fattening lunch of
Swedish meatballs & mashed potatoes and gravy!

Nathan ate his mashed potatoes "puppy" style

Nathan ate a heap of potatoes, filled his little belly full,
and look at his happy smile!

But lunch didn't happen until we had finished shopping.
I hadn't really planned on spending any money
(SERIOUS!)
but there were deals at IKEA

that I just simply could NOT pass up!

No! I didn't buy a rocking horse --
neither did Nick
but he demonstrated it very nicely for us!

Rachel and Nathan tried out this slide
Nathan wasn't too sure about it
and the picture of them coming down it
didn't turn out very well ...

Young Mr. Jones has found a new kind of chair
here at IKEA.
He wedged his little bottom into this end table
and wasn't too sure about how to get it out!

Here is the Beloved Mr. Jones and his
darling baby Nia! And then we all played "Goldilocks"
and tried out all of the chairs in the place ...
some were too hard ...

some were too soft ...

but these were JUST RIGHT!
I love this picture of Nick and Rachel!

We weren't buying these chairs --
we were just relaxing in them
after walking "miles" through the warehouse.

Here is Nathan doing his monkey pose ...

We had a great time at IKEA.
I did end up buying an office chair for my HOME office
(I no longer have any other kind of office!)
It's extremely comfortable -- and my other one was not!
It was more than reasonably priced too!
I also purchased some finger puppets,
(I know, I had lots and lots of those already)
some plastic food containers and lids,
a very cool tool chest/toy thing for $1.50
(we found this in the "AS IS" section -- it was slightly damaged).

AND!

Remember how I said grandpa and I were going to
buy Nathan more trains for his 2nd birthday?
Well, we changed our minds because
there was a great art easle for kids -- perfect sized
for toddlers -- great price, etc.
So we bought it for Nathan! :)

After spending many hours there at IKEA
we headed on back to the apartment
with a side trip to the marketplace
to pick up some veggies and great bread
at the bakery next door ...

This is a great marketplace!
It doesn't feel like America when you are walking around it!
It reminds me very much of Europe or Israel --
but actually, Nicolas says it is just plain Mexican!

Young Mr. Nathan, artiste extraordinare'!
(Notice Rudy there checking it out)

I think Rudy very much wanted to crawl
up inside the easle -- WHY?
Because he is a cat!

Nathan was pretty intense with his drawings

but liked it even better when daddy drew
pictures with him.
This picture started out with a cat
a sun
some clouds
and then Nathan wanted some black
added in, so Nicolas made some
storm clouds
and some tall buildings, etc.

A future artist is being nurtured here! :)

We had a very good day!