Sarah: IKEA day

We went to IKEA. But that's not the half of it.

Mallory, Lisa, and I (we missed you, Marci! At least one of the girls is a responsible employee.) met at 6:45 am and picked up breakfast at McDonalds. Biscuits, muffins, hashbrowns, and drinks filled the car. Justin accompanied us in the car. I wore a sweatshirt I borrowed from Lisa McShrimpyArms, thus creating a patent-pending exposed-wrist-centric dance move. We packed lawn chairs in the trunk. We car-flirted. All of this before arriving at IKEA.

Ushered by countless police officers, we parked in the rapidly-filling parking lot and chose to leave the lawn chairs behind.

Music blared, fire dancers performed on stilts (but without fire)

and tiny tumblers tumbled. We made our way to the end of the line

and shook our booties with reckless abandon. Then came the swag.

Through shameless cries of "oh! oh! oh! mememe!" everytime an IKEA employee walked past, we each received an IKEA Frisbee, rubber ducky (complete with tool belt and fetching baseball hat), compass keychain, and house-with-hidden-screwdriver-compartment keychain. Others closer to the front of the line received IKEA water bottles and those that camped out days in advance (some had been there since Monday!) received yellow shirts that said "I Slept With IKEA."

Watching the line lengthen and snake around the building, we were glad we got to IKEA when we did (not too early, but not too late. We were the Three Little IKEA Piggies. Or something. Edited to add: Meaning, of course, the Three Little IKEA Bears. Or IKEA Goldilocks. Obviously Shrek has infected the fairy-tale portion of my brain. Leave my fairy tales alone!).

We were still unsure, however, if we would get a prize envelope when we entered the doors. These envelopes are reserved for the first 2500 customers, and all of us were bad at estimating large numbers of people. But we got envelopes! Hurrah!

None of the prizes were too exciting, but Lisa got a $10 IKEA gift card! Which she promptly forgot to use when she purchased...

a children's easel with chalkboard and paper roll
an ovary-burstingly cute bake set and teeny tiny ceramic tea set
and finger puppets. For work, obviously. Because her job is awesome.

My shopping was less exciting. I got a big new vase and some rocks for replanting my bamboo plant.

Mallory didn't purchase anything, but I think we may go back soon to look at beds.

And we can go back anytime. Because IKEA? Is in Utah.

After we were IKEAd out, we all went to lunch at Great Harvest. It was so delicious and so relaxed. I wish I could spend the day with my girls every Wednesday.