The Maze That is Ikea... & A Fun Meet-up

I have finally gone through the 1000+ posts in my Google Reader and am starting to recover from my whirlwind trip to Utah. We left on Sunday with snow and icy roads, but we made it safe and sound at Ikea just before 1pm.
This shows you the majority of what I bought at Ikea:

My Ikea Shopping Adventure by bloggernextdoor on Polyvore.com

We spent 4.5 hours at Ikea on Sunday, so we had to wait until Monday to go to Old Navy and a HUGE Forever 21. (It was two stories and was housed in an old department store... Monday morning = no elbows/fighting girls for fitting rooms!) I wasn't able to find most of my Forever 21 finds online. I also bought a tie-front sweater on clearance for $8 and a really cute green top for vacation. I almost bought out the store, but I kept myself in check. Can you tell I like to buy in multiples? See the big floppy hat? I bought J's niece a matching one from Old Navy, so we'll be twins on vacation.

What Didn't I Buy for Vacation by bloggernextdoor featuring Old Navy

After shopping, we stumbled upon something that I crave weekly and never get to eat because the nearest one is 3 hours away...
Well worth the 6.5 hour drive!! I wanted to get some to go so I could eat it for dinner, but I was afraid the car would be taken over by the smell.

Enough about shopping... Sunday night, we met up with fellow blogger, Stephanie. I was excited to meet her face-to-face after emailing back and forth for months. I told Jen that I felt like I was getting ready for a first date. I had on entirely too much makeup and lamented about how much I hated my hair right now. Isn't it funny how we worry about what others will think when we've been building a friendship for months? It's almost like online dating! Stephanie was an absolute sweetheart and went out of her way to pick us up for dinner. Unfortunately, we were thisclose to an accident on the way to dinner. It was almost like we were witnessing it in slow motion. Glass, metal, plastic flying everywhere, fluids leaking out of cars, airbag deployment... the whole nine yards. Scary!! Once we got seated, conversation started to flow. Interestingly, we had friends/coworkers that knew each other... small world! Dinner came to an end in no time. Just call me Grace because I nearly fell on our way out of the restaurant! You know it's not pretty when a waitress asks if you're okay. Ha, ha!

After one more trip to Ikea (I chose to stay in the car this go-round), we were on our way back with a car that was a bit more weighed down than the day before.
Did you think that was the end of the story? Not so fast, my friends. We were about 2 hours from home when the headlights went out. WHAT?! Holy crap. This is elk country, folks. After watching the accident the night before and knowing of one the weekend prior as well, I was not excited to start this new adventure. We soon realized that we could have light... but that meant we would be bright-lighting anyone that came our way. Fortunately, we were in an area with low traffic, but we started seeing more and more as we got closer. We had some ticked off travelers coming at us, but there was nothing we could do. We stopped at a gas station an hour from home and realized the 40 degree temps in Utah were a distant memory, as we stepped out in below zero frigid air.

We eventually made it to Jen's house, where we moved my items from her car to mine, and I was on my way. Just in time to hit the sack, so I could make a 7am meeting at work the next morning...

The things we do for IKEA.