Here’s a shot of our campsite, with Max, Emma & Uncle Ernie hanging out.
When Daddy visited us after work, he brought the laptop so that we could watch a movie.
We spent a lot of time chasing Emma.
And a lot of time just having fun together being a family.
We Wadleys have had a couple of moments of fame recently, as reported in our local newsmedia. First, Max and I were interviewed by Florida Today when we went with Nouno and his friend Gerald to watch the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery in October. Check out the article and photo of my favorite astronaut here.
And, our camping adventure at Ikea was regarded with disbelief, horror, and simple curiosity by many. But the reporters definitely seemed drawn to the crazy lady who brought her two children to camp out. We appeared on the TV news on Fox35 and Channel 6, and you can find us in photos online at tampabay.com and other places. We were even filmed for a blog on Ikea loyalty.
The Orlando Sentinel ran this article, which doesn’t mention us in the story, but don’t those blurry figures in the background of the photo look familiar?
The Sentinel gave Ikea a lot of coverage, so you can also see this page which includes a thumbnail of Emma on the right. We show up a couple of times in the video and photo galleries.
OK, well, that’s our 15 minutes of fame gone. Hope it was well spent.
Well, I did it. They said I was crazy, but I took the kids and my brother Ernie and we camped out for two nights at Ikea Orlando to be in line for the grand opening. Yes, we did win a chair (one for me, and one for Ernie) and got some other free goodies (pillows, toys and stuffed animals for the kids, water bottles and frisbees and t-shirts), but honestly, I didn’t take two kids cement camping just for a $90 chair.
The event had its UPS (meeting other Ikea fans, and realizing how broad their demographic is, and how much we all have in common, despite our differences) and DOWNS (some over-tired children, a limit to how much fun you can have in a parking lot, and sleeping on concrete when our air mattress sprung a leak). But, overall, it was rewarding to be with a bunch of other people who are also excited about Ikea, and surprisingly fun to have two full days without TV, with only books, a couple of toys, a frisbee and each other for fun.
I think it would be awesome to do this kind of experience without the kids too. In fact, we were pretty much the only people camping with kids. We were interviewed by lots of media – and apparently we showed up on the news a few times. I’m glad I didn’t see those.
The opening was AWESOME! And, Max got to be the first official child in the play area – the first jump into the ball pit! He was so excited about that!
Now, I’ve got to cut it short because I am running low on energy after the last two days. I’ll try to post pics tomorrow.