A Trip to Salt Lake

IKEA

Just the sight of the menu makes Susie happy! (Pickled herring, smoked salmon, and open faced shrimp and egg sandwiches were also on the menu).

Swedish meatballs anyone?

Thanks for taking our picture Hannah--sorry Susie.

This afternoon, Joe, Hannah, Rebekah, Susie and me went to Ikea in Salt Lake. This was our first experience in the Swedish super store (that opened in Draper in 2007) and I had a lot of fun! Fortunately, Jonathan got a call from Truman (from his school class) before we left and was very excited to be playing and not shopping. Ikea is an experience. You grab a store map and a mini pencil, tape measure, cart, and some patience and off you go--floating adrift and gawking at all there is to see! The girls claim now that they were "bored" but they acted far from that as they sat at each different computer chair and tried out the computer desks, beds, room furniture, etc. in the mini-room displays. About midway through, we stopped at the restaurant and had the Swedish Meatball Plate with red mashed potatoes and Lingonberries. (Rebekah was hesitant about trying meat and berries but gave it a go. Hannah was willing but did not find it to her liking). Julie (with Joe's help) finished hers off and felt delightfully full. At this point, we were short on time and hurried through the basics of home and textiles and self serve downstairs to the checkout and Food Market. At the food market, we tried samples of gingerbread cookies and found Rye bread (in a box mix), Lingonberry jam, salty licorice fish, chocolate, and candy.

Some "finds" included two sets of finger puppets ($4.99 each), a baby mobile ($14.99), a duster ($3.00), two cutting boards ($2.00), two shirt bibs ($4.99), three burp cloths ($3.49), and an interactive cloth book ($9.99).

From the Food Market we "found" Diam chocolate with caramel and with toffee pieces, "pearl"sugar, Lingonberry preserves, Jelly Rat candy, Rye Bread, Ginger cookies, and Lingonberry cookies.

We had no idea that Ikea shopping would take so long...we hurried to the car and we were off to visit Great Grandma Edith Jex Clayton and (finally) deliver her Christmas presents and card. Great Grandma Edith looks good! Ophthalmologists were able to detect bleeding in her eye and stop the macular degeneration and save her sight recently by injecting fluid to staunch he bleeding directly into the eyeball. Her daughter is keeping her company and sent us home with a plate of homemade toffee for Joe (who commented, "Edith remembers just what I like!") and a large bag of Chex Mix for the children. Our visit was too brief but the girls were able to play a few piano songs for Edith. We hurried home (because we had left Jonathan playing with a new friend for five plus hours. He was well and his friend was sad to see him go home!). (Sidenote: Susie fell asleep and so Joe waited in the car with her to let her nap. He tried reading scriptures and fell asleep and got a brief nap while the girls visited with Edith).