Anna's 12th Birthday

For Anna's 12th birthday, the main thing she wanted was to skip school. So....

We did a little rock climbing

A visit to the nail salon

And birthday meal of sausage potato casserole, pistachio yak and warm rolls (with homemade jam!)

Cards and gifts

And a birthday cake all aglow. 

Happy Birthday, Anna Jane!

Thanksgiving Abridged

 I don't know why, but I managed to get exactly one photo from Thanksgiving dinner. 

And it looks like we are all expecting the microwave to deliver something magical.

I did get this adorable picture of Laney, so what more can we ask for?

We DID manage to get the front yard decorated before the feast! I 100% support this, you know what they say about many hands!

There will be no climbing on the roof this year! We had permanent lights installed! They are pretty awesome.

Feels good to be ready for the neighborhood hayride! Cul de sac has got to represent!

Taking a step back

Things are hard. 

Really hard. 

Anxiety has come a calling. 

Knocking down Anna's door. 

I'm a mess. I can't eat. 

She's all over the place. 

I don't know how to help.

School is impossible. 

The mood swings are terrifying. 

We need to know more than we know. 

Running away. 

Tears and defiance. 

Chasing.

Pleading. 

Crying and driving. 

Price Chopper and the playhouse. 

Bare feet and concrete. 

Police. 

Remember when I thought waking up with the baby was going to break me?

I worry this will break me. 

But it won't. Because it can't. 

We are taking a step back. 

We're going to breath and hold puppies. 

And make it through another day.

Because she is our baby and she is worth all of it. 

Got my hair did

 Don't let that expression fool you. I LOVE it when the girls play with my hair. It puts me to sleep. 

We did what??

 We bought a gym.  

If you're my mom, then you know how many times we got very close to saying those words, only to back out because something wasn't quite right. 

But Brian was ready to sell and Mark made him promise to let us know if he ever wanted out, we'd be the first to know. 

The next 6 weeks were a flurry of conversations with Dan and Lauren Smith, negotiations, painstaking digging through old bank accounts, coming up with a value for the gym, more conversations with lawyers and financial advisors, drawing up a proposal, adding Ross and Lauren as partners, frustration with the organization mess that the gym has existed in for a decade and coming to a final number and making the offer to Brian. 

Then more negotiations. 

A deal was made and a date was set!

September 26...we would become gym owners. 

It was exciting and not a little scary. 

So we settled into limbo-land while we waited for the day to come. There was a weird sense of ownership that we were already feeling, even though Brian was still in charge and running things. Here and there we started cleaning and making minor improvements. He seemed okay with it all. I know he was sad but also relieved to have the burden off of his shoulders soon. 

We held a goodbye party and invited everyone that he had every known ever. And some of them came!

We survived another week of the in-between blues. It was hard to see him go, and also hard to hold off on the lengthy list of things we wanted to work on. 

And then....BAM! We were small business owners!

It was time to replace the old faded sign that was literally peeling off the front of the building.

We started cleaning and de-cluttering every nook and cranny.

Replace some equipment and probably saved a life in the process.

Started work on building up the wall on west side....no more dusty insulation decor!

We remodeled both bathrooms and the three shower...that was mostly Ross. He's ridiculously handy.

We painted just about everything. All the blue stripes on the walls needed to be "cracked pepper", The walls of the bathrooms and showers, as well as the newly finished (but unpainted) west wall. 

It took us only one wall ball workout to realized that "cracked pepper" is almost exactly the same color as the black...so we knocked out a thin yellow line (that was mostly me).

And even the lines on the floor got an update! It made a huge difference and we discovered that all the old paint drips could be scraped up with a razor blade. 

Yay?

The new kids room took a couple months, but it was so much better and the dog pee smell was totally gone! (Its the little things!)

Vertical storage for all the barbells

And stenciled numbers for all the dumbells.

And, oh my word, that doesn't even scratch the surface! New lights, fresh doors, toys for the kids room, repainting the cubbies, buying and stocking a fridge for drinks and protein bars, a total remodel of the front offices, signing a contract with one of the coaches to rent those offices for his chiropractic practice, establishing a cleaning schedule, hiring 7 new coaches, getting everyone CPR certified and trained on the AED machine, choosing new programming, handling members concerns and getting it all done while our children still need love and attention and need to be born (welcome baby Halle!)

It's been so much. But it's been wonderful. 

And hard,

But mostly wonderful. 

Hat Couture

 She's lovely.