Bithdays Celebrated at IKEA?

We celebrated the August birthdays in the IKEA restaurant this year. Isn't that an odd thing to do?

As it turns out, it wasn't really an odd thing: IKEA was having their annual all-you-can-eat Crayfish Festival last Friday. After consulting all the birthday people, we bought tickets all around and headed downtown. Greta and I went a bit early so I could snag a long table and set it up to look more festive than standard formica.

IKEA had kindly installed a row of artificial trees for the event, and our table was adjacent to them. It gave a nice backdrop for all the birthday photos.

Patrick entertains us with peek-a-boo while we wait for everyone to arrive.

Besides HEAPS of crayfish, the menu consisted of shrimp, smoked salmon, meatballs and gravy, boiled potatoes, lingonberries, mashed potatoes, salads, cheeses, breads, and assorted mini pastries.
HEAPS of crayfish, although I preferred the shrimp and meatballs.

Greta cozies up to a crayfish.

Patrick is tickled with a crayfish.

We created a tower of birthday treats in lieu of birthday cake. Since flames are not allowed in IKEA, I bought flameless tea lights to stand in for birthday candles.

Luke couldn't figure out how they "blew out" the birthday candles; he tried and tried to get the light to turn off!

Jared is trying to open a birthday gift.

Greta was thrilled to fianally get the white comforter on their wedding registry.

Heather actually knew ahead of time what this gift was: vintage dessert sets in "her" pattern.

Three wonderful kids whom we love VERY much!

Florida after the Shuttle Launch

I see I never posted about our Florida trip back in July, as I promised, so here goes:

After seeing the launch Friday morning, we went for seafood by the bay, and then we headed north on the coast route, Hwy A1A.

We stayed in a cute beachside condo in Daytona Beach that night, where Dennis and Wendy made us drive on the beach. To Californians, that's an odd, even sacrilegious, thing to do. But we did do it and it was fun.


We also climbed the stairs to the top of Ponce Inlet lighthouse, and ate more seafood.

Further north, we stopped at Fort Matanzas, an old Spanish fort near St Augustine, which is a National Monument. We rode the boat out to the fort and took a quick tour just before a thunderstorm hit. The park rangers set off the cannon just in time; any later and the lightning would have been too close to safely set off explosives.


We did a swing through historic St. Augustine and kept going.

The one time we decided to stop at the beach to get a swim, another storm blew in and thunder sent us running back to the car.

Chuck and I remembered taking a tiny river ferry many years ago, from Jacksonville to Amelia Island. We had some trouble finding it, but we eventually did, and we crossed the river at dusk. More rain pelted us as we found a motel Saturday night, and as we ran across the street for another seafood dinner.

Sunday we headed for Savannah at Wendy's request. We all enjoyed roaming the streets, admiring the architecture, and sweating profusely in the humidity.

Back to Atlanta Sunday night.