She's Outta Here ;)

 Last weekend the boys and I took their sister to Denver to fly back to college in NC.  She was pretty excited to get back to school and her friends.

She was also happy to leave behind the crazy summer where she worked 70 hours a week at two different jobs.  But it was worth it.  She paid half of her school year off with just the summer.

She had an afternoon flight so we headed to her choice of restaurants for lunch - Johnny Carino's.  My mom and sister and her family joined us.  We had a nice visit before having to drop her off.  (It was not as somber as the picture looks - and the color is terrible because I didn't use a flash).

 I'm happy for her to be back where she wants to be, but things will be a little dull around here without her.

Don't you just love the necklace she bought while we were out shopping one day?

Before we took her to the airport, the two year old got to open his birthday gift from Grammy.

She bought him a toy vacuum that really sucks up dirt.

He uses it a lot ... thinks he has to use his when I use mine.  He's very helpful ;)

 So, after we dropped of my daughter at the airport, we headed over for a tour of Ikea.  I'd never been there and it was pretty cool.  I didn't like that you had to walk through the entire circuit to get out of the store, and by the time we were done, the kids were completely OVER IT.  But I did find some things I liked.  (The picture above shows the moment the 9 year old realized he matched the couch.)

 You can see we were a little out of control.  Orange is the 9 year old's favorite color, and you can probably guess by what he's wearing what his favorite football team is.  We've been wanting to do the boys' room in Denver Bronco's orange and blue and white.  He decided he NEEDS this couch for his bedroom.  Yeah.

 I fell in love with this table.  It folds up to seat 6 or stretches out to seat 10.  And the price was really good.  I'm thinking this would be an awesome homeschool table.  The laminate version is under $250.

Ooh, and then there's this.  Wouldn't this be perfect for a media room?  Or our library?????  This was considerably more than the table.

Oh, and in case my husband is reading this blog, here's a big blue hint of what to get me for the next holiday. :)

After Ikea, we hit Krispy Kreme for a quick hot snack, then headed to the brand new Cabelas that was having it's grand opening.  These are apparently the swamp people.  I have no idea who they are as we don't have television service (and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't watch their show if we did) but my brother-in-law is from Louisiana and was very excited about them being there... and then he didn't even make it there to meet them.  So this picture is for you, J.

This Cabelas looks pretty much like the one in Sydney, Nebraska.  Lots of mounts and such.  I actually went there because I was hoping to find some good shoes but I didn't find what I was looking for, so I just bought a huge bag of jerky instead.  

I took this picture to show my husband the awesome price I paid for fuel on the trip (didn't mention to him that I used my Mom's gas points for a 65 cent discount per gallon.)

It still took $91 to fill my nearly empty tank. :(