IKEA: Swedish for brilliant marketing

I'm starting to have the ability to relate to all you stay-at-home moms. Sometimes you just need to go somewhere to get out of the house. Not for any purpose other than to just get out and see some grown ups, see some different scenery, and maybe have an adult conversation or two, even if it is just with the barista at Starbucks. Well just because there are two of us at home now doesn't mean things are any different. Sometimes we just need to ditch this place. Our favourite outing (besides the zoo) is for sushi but because that's pretty expensive we've been trying to come up with less expensive options. One of the best ones we've found to date is IKEA. You can go there to shop, to eat and to play. It pretty much keeps every family member happy.

So we went there for lunch the other day. We got two kids meals, two adult meals and drinks all around for sixteen bucks! The food was great (the kids ate everything up) and the view was nice (ok it was just the parking lot and Deerfoot trail but it was better than a food court). You can also go for breakfast for $1. I haven't tried the breakfast but how could you go wrong? After you eat your steal-of-a-deal brunch/lunch there's no excuse not to go shopping. In order to make the experience bearable for kids, scattered through their maze of a showroom they have strategically located kids play centres. How brilliant! In other stores the kids are begging to leave but do you think that happens in IKEA? No way. The kids were begging us to STAY right in the bowels of the home office section. Of course we picked up $700 worth of office furniture which took us 3 hours to assemble. It sort of makes you wonder who's taking advantage of who. Give a person a deal on a cheap meal and a place for the kids to play and they have no problem dropping big $ in your store. Brilliant marketing IKEA. You got us again. Maybe we'll stick with sushi from now on.