A Fun Day at IKEA

My friend Jeanne and I are lucky that our daughters are very good friends as well. They have been friends since 7th grade when Becca was new to the middle school whereas Kaefer already had an established group of friends who went with her to middle school. Kaefer and Becca soon became friends and have been two wonderful goofheads ever since. 

When both girls got accepted to the University of California - Becca to Santa Barbara and Kaefer to Davis - the four of us were quick to check our calendars for a dorm shopping day at IKEA. The nearest IKEA is near Berkeley and that is where we went.

There is this big metal chair outside between the blue-yellow store and the parking garage. Ever since it had been there Kaefer has enjoyed climbing on it, and of course nothing could stop our girls to do so this time. Becca is much taller than Kaefer, so they were arranging themselves on the chair until they looked the same hight. The goofiness had started and didn't stop until we were back home.

IKEA has not only furniture but also kitchen utensils, tools and all the decoration items we obviously cannot live without. They do a great job in displaying it in a beautiful way that of course tempts the customers to buy buy buy (which is really easy at IKEA since the prices are very reasonable).

Those orange dishes in the lower left corner are ALWAYS a huge temptation for me. They have the same dishes in turquoise and a combination of the two looks gorgeous. I wonder when I will finally become weak and buy both sets.

IKEA's showroom includes tiny "appartments" that are fully furnished and very inspiring. The closets always contain a few pieces of clothes and we had enormous fun taking those clothes out and "trying them on". 

The girls stopped in the "café" - another opportunity for silly photos.

And of course the four of us had to try out the beds! Not that we were in any need to buy one...

It took us hours to get through the showroom and we were exhausted and hungry (and still had to go through the Marketplace with all those decorative items - I always call this part the Bermuda Triangle). Fortunately IKEA has a restaurant (every decent furniture store at least in Germany if not Europe has a restaurant because furniture shopping makes hungry and you have to think over some good food about these big decisions you are going to make) and we soon found ourselves at a table at the window over Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes (an IKEA staple) and chicken tenders with fries. And look what we found for the "little ones":

Bibs!!! College kids need those for sure!!!

Before we descended to the Bermuda Triangle we saw this one in the children's department - it cracked me up! The wolf eating grandma! Now this is a great way to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood!

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays in the US. I like its quirkiness, the creativity and fun. Decorating the house has been something I always looked forward to it.

This year, however, has been different. The Halloween spirit never reached me - I was just too busy - with preparing and teaching my German class, with taking and editing high school senior pictures. I love doing both, but Halloween had to pay the price. My Halloween decoration this year came down to this:

I apologize to the birds for misusing their birdbath... good thing that there are more than just this one in my garden.

However, while walking around my neighborhood I noticed that there were more Halloween decorations than last year, and that made me really happy. The masked pumpkins were here last year, but they have multiplied this October.

They also got some spooky visitors.

The Geek and I love to take a walk after dinner, and we met quite some glowing creatures on our street.

Even though I haven't been in a real Halloween mood I enjoyed all these creatures very much. This one is my favorite - the bat dog!

Kaefer, however, got in the spirit and dressed up. I really really really love it. She made the dress herself - last year, for the Homecoming dance. A great re-use of a lovely dress! I "colored" her hair with a black hairspray so that her hair became darker. She even wore nylons - and it's hot here! Can you see who she is? (Who would wear nylons in 85° weather?)

(Hint: it's a lady from a very popular British TV series...)

Dog Days of Summer Party

I didn't write a single blog post at all last week. I just didn't have the time because I was preparing our garden party that took place on Saturday.

On the hottest day of the year up to then (Sunday was even hotter with a balmy 104 F)! It wasn't only hot, it was smokin' hot - literally. In the early morning, the smoke of the big wildfires north of us made its way down into our county and lingered the better part of the day. Thankfully it had disappeared mostly when our party started in the late afternoon, but the air is still hazy and a bit smoky. And it's still hot.

But I digress. I wanted to tell you about the garden party. Every summer I had talked about a garden party, but except for one summer quite some years back I never followed through with my plans. This summer, though, was different - and I finally had the party I was dreaming about all the years before.

Do you remember the clothesline the Geek built for me? It's perfect to change into a canopy sort of thing for shade for a party. I just threw a huge piece of sunny fabric over the lines, fastened it with my bird shaped pegs, set out a table and a few chairs beneath it - done! It was a popular spot to hang out during the party.

I had bought flowers to make little bouquets for the tables - that was the real fun part of the prep work. I love to arrange flowers in a casual way, and this is what it looked like.

I wanted to fill this lovely wire basket with flowers as well. I usually put my harvest in it when I walk around the garden picking the ripe veggies. I found these stunning gaillardias and a petunia in one of my favorite nurseries. I will plant all of them as soon as it cools down a bit.

And then we were just waiting for the friends and neighbors we had invited.

They came and most of them had brought something to eat or to drink. No one had to leave hungry!

I had made a special German drink that is very popular at summer parties, and I will tell you more about it in one of my next posts. I got a lot of ideas from Pinterest, the Geek created the wooden base for the lemonade and even Kaefer had made some of the food. Very soon the party was in full swing.

The girls had occupied a table for themselves and had such fun together.

The next morning didn't look much different than right before the party...