A Swedish Meatball, Cat Cookie, and Iced Coffee Day

It's been pretty hard to make church on Sunday lately. Not because we don't want to go, but because our daughter usually naps at the same time as the service. So this morning when it became apparent she wasn't going to wake up in time, we started thinking of alternative plans. We finally settled on a shopping trip to a couple of new Charlotte stores we haven't ventured to yet: IKEA and Trader Joes.

When we lived near Houston, we went to IKEA a couple of times. The gigantic home furnishing store apparently wasn't big enough for the likes of Texas (where everything really is bigger), so they were in the midst of building an even bigger one next door. Nevertheless, it's was one of the biggest home furnishing stores I've ever been in. We marveled at the winding maze of rooms, all with ultra modern furnishings we liked, but never figured out how to incorporate into our fairly conservative home. So although we enjoyed shopping there, we never bought a thing. Even so, it's a fun place to go, so we checked it out the new store in Charlotte today.

Let me tell you, if you've never been, you have to go just to see it. It's fantastic. We had a great time just looking at all the cool things. I think Mason even had a great time. Especially in the kids rooms. This time, we actually bought a couple of things: a new kids' table with chairs for our kitchen and some light bulbs. (Dave was tempted by the pickled herring he found in the grocery section, but decided it might get too hot in the car.)

About halfway though the maze of rooms, just when you get ready for a little break and a snack, you come up on: the IKEA restaurant! It's a self service cafe with some really great food. We shared a plate of the famous IKEA Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and ligonberry sauce, and a slice of almond cake. Delish!

After IKEA, we headed over to Trader Joes. Although we've always heard good things about it, we've never been. There's never been one close to where we lived. I love to shop for all natural\organic things and there were lots of good things for reasonable prices. As a treat for Mason, we bought some Cat Cookies which we tried in the car. Turns out they are really good, and I wish we had bought some more.

And what goes good with afternoon cookies? Coffee! So we headed across the parking lot and got some iced coffee from Starbucks. We enjoyed our little snack all the way home.

And when we got home, I think Dave was a little hopped up on caffeine, because he finished the next step on the porch project we've been working on for awhile now: staining all the wood beams so they'll be ready for rescreening.

Hopefully, God will forgive our napping daughter for making us miss church this morning. Especially since we were able to spend such quality family time today.