In the Snow of Detroit

OK. I need all of you to click on the "Tentpegs" link, on the far right of my blog, under blogs that I follow. Then read the blog titled "In the Snow of Detroit". This group of people is incredible and I long for the day I have a Christian family like this. We do little things like this here and there, but never to the level that they do on a monthly basis. This is just ONE of this group's outreaches and stories. They're awesome and I know God is just beaming over what they do. Enjoy!
Katy

The Many Faces of Mia

Since I haven't posted in a while, and Mia is changing daily, I thought I'd do a post of just Mia pictures. Enjoy!

There's always hair in her face, it's just so fine and slippery and won't stay back!

Actually, in this pic my dad slicked her hair back with conditioner and hair spray, but she's carring his metal tool box full of tools! Strong little thing!

Playing in the sink at grandmas :)

Wearing Nora's bat headband thingy on halloween.

She loves putting on gloves like mommy and "Helping".

Here she's playing spoon tug-of-war with Jaydia and finding it hilarious.

Before our homecoming game, in her custom "Panther Cub" shirt.

I guess we can't leave without her!

Oh my... check out those rainboots ;)

Could she be any more flexible? She's trying to buckle her own seatbelt.

Once again, wearing a glove and "helping" mommy. We have issues when the oven is actually on because she thinks the broiler part is her toy. Ugh.

Looks like a china baby with her hair like that! She's running through pretty intense rain, barefoot, on asphalt. Crazy!

This is early summer, but it's when she learned to whistle. SO cute.

I walked into her room after a particular unsuccessful nap attempt, to find not Mia, but Mogley!!! She had somehow gotten her arms out of the neck of her shirt, yanked her hair out, thrown all her pillows and blankets overboard, and was quite proud of it all.

Some pictures from the potty (we have to do something to kill time while she decides to go). Here's a happy face...

What does the cow say? Moooooooo! (Although she more resembles a goat in the picture)

Stinky!

Last one for today, I think she's got water in her eyes! Hee hee hee, silly girl!

Thanks for sticking with me through a mass collection of Mia pictures. Hopefully those blog stalkers who are grumpy at my infrequent posts have gotten their fill of pics :) You know who you are! Love you!



Shutterfly

Last week I saw Brooke's blog and read her rave about Shutterfly holiday cards. I am always looking for good holiday photo cards but I usually end up using the same company as everyone else and get the cookie-cutter cards that look like everyone else's. Well, Brooke always has the best looking photo stuff so I figured she had good taste and I should check out the website she was referring to. So I went to Shutterfly.com and was really REALLY impressed. They have SUCH unique, high-end looking cards. I assumed that since they were so professional looking, that they would cost a lot more than other sites, but honestly, they're not more expensive. They just look like it :). Check them out yourself here. So I too decided to blog about them and receive my 50 free cards, even though we all know that with friends and family across the world, we’re gonna need way more than 50! Also, for Mia's birthday Joel and I wanted to do photo cards instead of invitations so that they would kill 2 birds with 1 stone in the scrapbook. Check out all the birthday cards! I won't be using walmart.com or any of the other holiday photo card places because I don’t want my cards to look the same as ones I get in the mail. Ours will be unique, creative, and professional. Thanks Brooke for passing on this great promotion AND such a great site.

Halloween '10

We had another halloween party at our restaurant this year and it was a lot of fun. We had live music, great prizes, etc. We didn't plan it very well because the football team had it's last game of the season in a nearby town that evening, so we didn't have much of a crowd. Anyone living in the south knows how games in nearby towns create a ghost town in your own. That's ok though. We had a great time, then afterwards we went dancing with some of our friends.

Check out Steve Irwin in the back. He has a stingray coming out of his chest! EW!

Our Louisianna friends brought a "cheese" cake with "rats" on it. It really was cheesecake - a good one at that, and the rats were chocolate covered strawberries with tales and little beady eyes. Hilarious!

Joel and I, always clowning around... rodeo clowning that is :)

A Visit With Ashley

At least once a year, one of my best friends, Ashley, and I try to get together. We need to make it more than once a year, but with a combined three kids under 4, making the 6 hour trip doesn't come easily...

This time I went to visit her at her beautiful home that her and her husband Nate have with their two sweet kids, Aiden (almost 4) and Miley (2 1/2). I probably shouldn't mention that this trip took place in September, seeing as how I'm not posting anything until November...but I'm working on getting caught up. SORRY!

Mia and I were there for a little more than 3 days and had a GREAT time with them. It's CRAZY how much Mia and Miley look alike. They could totally be sisters - which is even crazier considering how Ashley and I look NOTHING alike.

We went to the awesome zoo and had a blast. Here are some photos!

When I first got there, we decided to put all the carseats in one vehicle so we didn't have to drive around separately. It was SO cute that all 3 held hands! Sorry for cutting your face off Aiden - the iPhone camera kinda stinks.

Here's Miley and Mia at the Zoo!

Miley feeding the cute little goats...

It only took 345,677,889 attempts to get all 3 to look at us. We looked like complete morons trying to make them smile and look at us. Everyone in the zoo was looking at us EXCEPT our kids...

Something's stinky!

Aiden handled the lorikeet being on him like a champ.

As did Ashley...

But Mia apparently takes after her mommy and was petrified of the birds!

Look closely, there are 3 kids on this stroller! Ashley's working so hard, and I'm taking pictures... oops. We had a great trip and LOVE you guys!!!



RazorBack Ribs

Well, in late June we purchased a new location. We started out in a BBQ trailer in January of '09. In September of '09 we took over a coffee shop on the town square and added our BBQ to the menu. We were simply renting the building and equipment at that point. The building was awesome, an old bank with a safe in it from 1893. However, it didn't have a full kitchen, our seating was limited, and it's super old so that brought it's share of issues. About 6 months ago, a 60+ year restaurant went out of business. It had changed hands a few times, fell to bad management and after they neglected to pay sales tax several months in a row, the state locked their doors. Enter Joel and Katy :).

This place USED to be a fantastic stop that everyone hung out at, but in recent years it has gotten pretty disgusting and hardly anyone went there anymore, unless they wanted ice cream. This place always had the BEST ice cream and desserts.

We purchased it for a fair price and started the most incredible renovation we've ever undertaken. The "before photos" I'll post here aren't even the true beginning. This is once all the equipment was pulled out. Trust me, it was B-A-D. We had a professional steam cleaner/pressure washer for 5 entire days work on the building. It took him a whole day just to do the vent hood above the grill. EWW. He then steam/pressure washed the entire interior. After him, our staff went in and hand scrubbed floor to ceiling. We then repainted the entire place before moving any equipment back in.

After hanging up some decorations (which we will improve upon as time allows), covering tables, having chairs reupholstered, installing a new kitchen our style, implementing a full POS computer system, and getting the place spotless, we opened this past Wednesday (the 11th). The night prior to opening day we did a "friends and family" dinner which served as a trial run for all our staff. It was a bit chaotic but all our kinks were worked out and it's now running fantastic. We are truly blessed to have 10 of the best staff members we could ever hope for. Praise God!

Here are some photos from start to finish. Like I said, it'll never be finished as we continue to add and improve things, but this got us opened...

And After:

More to come at some point... But for now we are just grateful for all the help and all the work that went into this place. We had our first health inspection Friday and the inspector said it was the first restaurant with "zero" write-ups that he has had in years. In fact, too many zero write-up inspections and the state will come audit his inspections. It's that rare. We were THRILLED to say the least. It's been a crazy past few weeks with not a lot of sleep, but it's totally worth it. People have been flocking to the new place like crazy. It hasn't stopped. Because of all this, we are able to provide 10 jobs, not counting Joel and I, to a small town hurting from a terrible economy. What a blessing!!

Joel the Baptizer

So anyone who knows Joel and I know that we try our best to be good Christians (even though we fall on our faces A LOT) but our true goal with our restaurant is to use it as a ministry tool. Well, it's working. This past week Joel has baptized 3 people into Jesus and that is just awesome. Braden was the first one. He has been in Joel's collegiate class for quite some time now, Joel baptized his sister Kortnie last summer. Braden just started working for us 2 weeks ago and he has been a huge blessing to us, and we pray that we'll be a blessing to him also. The next two ladies are Kacie and Tracy. They were eating lunch at our restaurant the other day and started talking to Joel about Christianity and decided to take the next step in their spiritual lives. Praise God!!! One of our youth kids was baptized this week also, we call her Peanut, but her name is Makala. Pray for all of these new, clean, Christians. We are so excited and honored to be a part of their lives.

I love to watch baptisms. The people are so free and clean and relieved afterwards. It truly is a transformation and God definitely is present in those moments. I get goose bumps just thinking about it!