Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

As you know, Jesse's friends were staying with us this weekend, and they had plans to do boy things - play video games, watch sports, drink beer and eat pizza - not quite my idea of a fun weekend.

So I woke up early Saturday morning, met up with my co-worker Meredith, and we headed down to Potomac Mills for a day of shopping at Ikea and the outlets. It was such a great day and we bought so many cute things - now that's my idea of a fun weekend! :)

We started out at Wegman's for lunch. Nerd alert: I was so excited to show Mere Wegman's for the first time. We both got salads from the salad bar and then spent another 45 minutes walking around the store picking out a few goodies to take home. I bought a few greeting cards that I'm planning to frame and some new dishtowels. As we were walking through the store we heard "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and it was the perfect theme for our day! We left there energized and headed to Ikea, another new experience for Meredith.

As usual, I spent several hours ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the room sets. I was kind of hoping to find a buffet (I've now been looking for more than a year!), but no such luck. However, I bought a few small items and came home with all sorts of new ideas!

I want to do a photo wall like the one below over our bed or maybe in the dining room ...

And this chair is perfect for the empty corner in our bedroom. I'm kicking myself for not buying it!

I fell in love with this kitchen. Between the backsplash against the white cabinetry and the light fixture hanging over that island, there wasn't anything I didn't like about it!

After ogling over this kitchen for 15 minutes, I decided to buy the track lighting for my living room. I've wanted to replace our current track since we moved, so I'm thrilled that I finally found a new fixture!

In addition to the fixture, I picked up these other little goodies :)

greeting cards and dishtowels from Wegmans, guest room duvet,
gray and white tray for my dresser and dishtowels for my mom :)

After spending three hours at Ikea (and eating a cinnamon roll - we earned it!), we headed over to the outlets. The whole reason for the trip was so that I could help Meredith exchange a cardigan. She bought it from Ralph Lauren this fall, but one day at work she noticed that she somehow had snagged the elbow. I mentioned that she should try to bring it back, but she didn't think they would take it without a receipt. I offered to give it a try, because as strange as it is, I kind of like working the customer service angle.

So, we attempted to head there first, but my horrible sense of direction combined with the fact that I've only been to Potomac Mills once before, led us in the complete opposite direction. However, the good news is that we found J. Crew outlet. Meredith and I both found so many cute things, and each of us left with a few great new spring pieces!

After about an hour at J. Crew, we made our way over to Ralph Lauren (which involved me getting us turned around again!) where I successfully exchanged her black cardigan for an adorable white one, which is actually perfect since she recently got rid of her white one. Looks like we'll have to go back another weekend to find a black cardigan. :)

After eight hours of shopping, we both decided we should get home to our boys to see if they were still alive. I came home to five boys hanging out in the living room, drinking beer and watching basketball. It's nice having a sectional, but there wasn't enough space for everyone. We decided to relocate the love seat from the sofa into the center of the living room, so for the rest of the evening my house looked about like this:

They played FIFA for at least 4 hours!

The sun room looks so sad without the love seat

they consumed a lot of this!

The best part of coming home is that Ross made dinner. I'm pretty sure that this is the first time we've had house guests where I wasn't in the kitchen for every meal. Thanks Ross! While they spent the rest of the night doing guy stuff, I spent it reading blogs, shopping online and playing with my new purchases.

It had a great day with Meredith and Jesse had a great weekend with his friends, but it's not quite over yet. Drew's birthday is tomorrow, so tonight is his birthday dinner. I'm making coconut shrimp for dinner and in ice cream cake for dessert!

Oh, and I'll be back soon to tell you more about my most recent Craigslist find! :)