34 Years!

We had a fun staycation for our anniversary this year. We had originally planned on heading to St. George with friends, but that fizzled so we made plans for ourselves. Monday we spent at the new City Creek mall in downtown Salt Lake City, dinner was at Biaggi's at the Gateway - I love going there because they have a vast Gluten Free menu. Tuesday (our actual anniversary) we spent some time in the Salt Lake Temple (where we got married) doing sealings. Then we headed up to check out the paint job on the new Ogden store and lunch. We then had a golf lesson which lasted 2 1/2 hours - like 9 holes worth of time. My shoulder protested a little, it was pretty rigourous for me just 4 months since shoulder surgery. The evening ended at the Jazz game. To my complete surprise, Karl had arranged for the Jazz Bear to bring me flowers during the game! I didn't notice the Bear coming up the isle with the flowers, didn't really seem him until Karl said,"There is the Bear", (I was fussing with my phone in my lap)when I looked up he was right there - handing me flowers. Then he bent down for a kiss - a mascot sticking his nose in my face. He took a step away then came back and acted out a more passionate kiss -- more mascot snout. At this point Karl stood up as if to threaten him for taking liberties with his wife. It was pretty funny. THEN I got covered in silly string. I have been giddy ever since!

Notice the silly string remnants!

I would have loved a picture with the Bear but it all happened so fast and by surprise! I'm blessed to have such a great guy by my side.

Here we go again!

We are in the process of opening another store, this time near Ogden, UT. It is in the middle of a huge shopping area in Riverdale.

This is an old Wallpaper Warehouse store that has been vacant for a while. It requires some work. We are repainting the entire interior, which is somewhat challenging because there is old, awful wallpaper on the walls. Have you ever tried removing wallpaper?? It would be a tremendous effort to remove it so the painter is going to paint over it after he treats it will Kilz primer and sheetrock mud. Then he will paint. My personal experience with wallpaper is limited, the stuff we had to tear out of my mother-in-laws condo was horrific, we had to rent a steamer and even then it was like picking it off an inch at a time. When I put wallpaper borders in my girls rooms years ago I treated the walls with 'sizing' before we put it up. When I took it down in Katies room, it just came right off soaking it with water. This next week we are removing the stuff from Laura's room -- I hope it goes as well.

We have to repaint the part where the old sign was, but will be leaving the UGLY maroon stripe. It has a huge sign post, that certainly would not pass current sign codes, but we are excited that it will tower over everything else around it. The store sits in the parking lot of a Home Depot, and WalMart is just adjacent to that.

These store expansions make me crazy with worry, but they've worked out so far. Hope to have it painted, recarpeted, signs up and open the end of April.