Catchin' Up.

I can't believe it's been SO long since I've taken the time to blog. I've had the urge and desire to; however, life has been so busy that the moments I have to just sit down and vegetate are taken very seriously and doing anything but staring at the History channel or TLC or whatever happens to be on the TV are cherished moments.

I don't really feel like I need to recap, but for journaling purposes I suppose a quick (?) one couldn't hurt. There are absolutely zero pictures here, so i commend you if you actually read this entire post.

We got home from Europe and hit the ground running (almost quite literally. Lance didn't even allow himself a single day to adjust to jet lag). Lance started getting his dealership out of the shambles it fell into while he was gone and I began looking for a place to harbor our new found love for European food. Two very disappointing weeks later, I finally caught a break and we signed a lease to one of the most incredible locations in Provo. At the time we were nervous about the lease we signed. Over the last 20 years, this space hadn't kept a tenant longer than 8 months, and the tenant that HAD stayed for a long time was the real estate office for the surrounding apartments. There had been a paintball store (random?), flower shop, and many other things. However, when Lance and I prayed about it, the overwhelming feeling of support we felt from the Lord was undeniable. My dad told us if we didn't sign the lease there he would (dad has always been our biggest business support), so those two things left us no choice. We signed the lease and started remodeling.

The process was long and extremely frustrating (about 2 months). Lance thought he had found two much older, very successful men that would be an asset to him and the growth of his company, and decided to partner with them. With that faith in mind, he dumped all our savings into the remodel (including all the restaurant equipment), knowing we'd continue to have some source of income to fuel our business endeavors. I totally immersed myself into this new restaurant. I did a LOT of research, a lot of trial and error with protocols, recipes, etc (while simultaneously running our little shave ice shack). We had to fight the OH so lovely Provo City on numerous things, pay unnecessary fines and fees to them for random things (your sign is a quarter inch too big (?), you don't have the right door hinge on your front door (?) ).

My mom's good friend Holly proposed an interesting idea to me - cater her friend's daughter's wedding!! A few weeks before our opening day, I did just that. Due to my lack of experience and under estimating food cost, I lost probably a few hundred dollars while doing the event but gained an incredible new way of seeing my business - how I might run things - understanding actual costs.

We soon had a soft grand opening where we invited blogger cJane and the Mayor to help get the word out. They both blogged about us which helped launch us into the public's eye a little more. The success of our shop was incredible. We were so blessed, to say the least, and had SO much overwhelming support from our family and friends. Almost every single day there were lines all the way to the street and we were running out of strawberries and raspberries every night. This meant Costco employees and I got onto a first name basis with one another. Lovely.

I spent often 17 hour workdays at the shop. I was exhausted, excited, happy, sometimes defeated - especially when I read my first negative review in August. I printed that out and even cried a little over it. I read and reread that review probably 20 times. That was the first and last time I let a nasty review ACTUALLY affect me. I decided then and there that no matter what, there will always be Keyboard Warriors who just like to be hateful... and that, GASP!, Not EVERYONE is going to like the product I offer! I came to terms with that fact and since then, any negative remark I've read has been taken in stride and I've used them as a tool to only make my shop better.


During these 17 hour shifts, Lance was working to create a new dealership essentially with out pay (somehow the deal he worked out with these potential investors included that...I don't know how), and while our restaurant was booming, we still could only really afford to buy groceries and gas for ourselves because we were still learning about the process - food costs, employee costs, taxes etc, and made monetary errors along the way. Needless to say, from July 2010 to December 2010 was one of the most trying times we'd experienced in our marriage. Not that there was fighting, but when there are lack of funds and sleep, things tend to get a little frayed and worn down. Luckily we had a few tools we'd acquired over the last 2 years that helped us through all of this.

For starters - one of the things that initially drew me to Lance was his incredible faith in the Lord. No matter how tight things would get or how scary the near future looked, he always said, "The Lord will provide. We just need to keep living our lives right and He will take care of us." And guess what? He sure did. Lance made sure we made our monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) trip to the temple, and we both made it a point to be faithful and diligent in magnifying our callings, going to church with meaning, and doing the daily things like saying our prayers and reading our scriptures (we finished the BOM!). I love that about him. He's instilled a stronger sense of faith in me - and if there's one thing I learned from these last 6 months, it's that the Lord WILL take care of you. He always does.

Don't forget that we're defiantly humans and sometimes that faith can get a little lost in the heat of the moment. Luckily we had just backpacked through EUROPE with the tiniest budget anyone on the face of the earth has ever had when backpacking, we were starving a good portion of the time, often didn't know where we were going to sleep that night, we'd missed trains and buses, lived in clothes (appx 5 days worth for almost a month) that literally HAD NOT been washed the entire time we were traveling, had almost been mugged in our sleep, gotten lost and separated from each other with no way to find each other again, spending literally 24-7 together, tired and sore feet, sometimes freezing weather conditions...the list goes on - and we came out of that better friends, stronger, happier...and honestly we only fought ONE time during that entire journey. ONCE. I am still in disbelief about that. Now, in retrospect, I see how much we had to rely on each other. I relied on Lance for protection, safety, and planning. He relied on me for (I think?) emotional support, spousal support, and I think just general belief in HIM as the patriarch. Lance also learned to have a little more social skills - we were sleeping on stranger's couches, so his silent suzy act had to disappear with out question. No stranger would let us stay in their home longer than half a day if we weren't friendly. To me, this is one of my favorite things that Lance gained...how to smile and be personal with strangers.

I see how this entire experience created this incredible foundation for the next year of our life. The backpacking experience was a very condensed and concentrated journey that prepared us for the highs and lows we'd soon experience in trying to build a foundation for our monetary future. I know for a fact that the strength we built in our relationship then came into play almost daily this last half year. I'm so grateful that I was raised to have a positive outlook on life. There are a few small things that I can see in myself that I can out loud say I am proud of, and one of them is that when I am in a negative situation, I have the ability to seek out the lesson I am supposed to learn out of it - or at least having faith that soon I will look back on the hard time and see how I've grown and understand the importance of that. I have to give credit of that skill to my parents. They both grew up in severe adversity and became amazing, successful, LOVING humans when all signs said they should grow up to be heathens. (So, thanks, Mom and Dad!)

Anyway, in the middle of this chaotic, fun, exciting time in our lives, we found out around Halloween that I was PREGNANT! Surprisingly, this didn't add any kind of stress to what we were feeling at that time. It just felt like this pregnancy was great timing for so many reasons, and only kicked both our butts into gear to make our businesses something lucrative and substantial. Lance finally decided that this deal with these new "honest" men was, in fact, essentially sour and unfair, so he cut ties with them and began building a new car dealership with my dad and some serious faith. I, in the mean time, had been able to spend less and less time at the shop (which was good because although I was never sick during my first trimester, I was a narcoleptic and was able to sleep a good amount) - but we were gearing up to launch our new savoury menu and two new options for waffles at the shop, and I was nervous about that. We had another round 2 of remodel over Christmas break (we shut down for about 2 weeks), and I was able to go home for about that long to spend a slightly delayed Christmas with my family because my little brother was coming home from his mission he served in Brazil! The shop reopened while I was in Texas. I don't know why I left the shop in the hands of two boys (lance and his bff kenny, who he served a mission with) with no love or real interest in food, restaurant management, or knowledge of how I treat my employees, because when I came back (we'd been reopened about 5 days) almost all of my employees were ready to quit and my manager (who has been a GREAT blessing for me, by the way) was VERY unhappy with everything. I quickly turned on my damage control gear, kicked out Lance and Kenny, told them their manliness was no longer needed (the remodel was finished), and I nursed our little shop back to health...which also meant 17 hour days again. No employees quit and our new waffles were a hit! The success started coming back quickly and almost too easily. Lance got his dealership going, and we were finally able to breathe again.

From this point on things have only gotten better. I am amazed every day at the wonderful-ness of my employees. I thank the Lord in my nightly prayers that he blessed me with such smart, savvy, sharp, spunky girls that work for me (one being my adorable little sister). They really are the reason my little restaurant has had so much success. They work so hard for not the best pay, so I truly feel overwhelming love for them often. I truly feel like they are all little sisters to me, and have found a real love for all of them.

Lance was chosen to be in the top three finalists for Student Entrepreneur of the Year at BYU, which is an INCREDIBLE honor. He was nominated for his dealership and the great success he had had over the last year and a half. (The guy who owns jDawgs was a winner one year for this prize and Lance has always said if he gets that award it will be one of the best things ever). He had to give a presentation (had less than 24 hours to prepare) in front of 400 students and 3 judges/ He walked away with 2nd Place and $5,000 - and although he didn't win the title, two of the most prestigious men in the business program at BYU asked him to go eat dinner with them so they could talk. This has put him on the map in the business world and his phone hasn't stopped ringing since. Luckily, he was able to talk about The Awful Waffle during his presentation which got the word out to some students who didn't know who we were. During the ceremony it was really neat because there was a thing trending on twitter where you could use a # and then SEOY (the event) and tweet whatever. I was following this and SO many people were tweeting about Lance and how they KNEW he was going to win and how interesting the story was. At the end, lance also won the Audience Choice by 65% (!!!) and an extra $100. That, to me, is almost more cool than winning first place. The people loved him! Somehow, Lance has remained pretty humble about himself and is determined to win first place next year. I love that he's still working so hard and doesn't really love talking about the whole ceremony. I'm extremely proud of him and think he's so smart and talented! My kids are going to be so lucky to have such a great teacher and example to live/look up to.

The shop has become a sort of land mark in provo - a place for college kids to go for date night. I love that The Awful Waffle is not only a "place" noun, but it's also a "thing" noun. People say "I just ate an Awful Waffle", not just "a waffle from that waffle place by jDawgs". I even saw a kid post on their facebook use it as a noun, "We just went Awful Waffling". I love it.

Really, after putting this NOT so short story on paper, I can mostly say I'm so grateful for trials. I am a much stronger, less naive, more sure human than I was exactly a year ago, and it's all come from what I've BEcome out of the dust of things. It's interesting how we are put through trials for a reason, that's for dang sure, and how obvious that has become to me. I love that things are getting better, more successful, more sustained - all the things we have been working toward. We now have three potential people who want to open up franchise type locations of The Awful Waffle in salt lake, north salt lake, and in Utah Valley.

To recap, things we've gained this year:
*FIRST and foremost, my FIRST NIECE! Little Madeline, who I love more than I could possibly understand and explain. That's been fun for me even though I haven't been able to see her as much as I'd like to
*A new baby girl, growing in my belly!
*Strength I didn't know I had
*A stronger marriage
*More faith
*Success
*Awards
*My little brother back from the mish!
*A heightened love for our families and the support they give us, my older sister for always spreading the word about our restaurant, the advice and love mom and dad have given us, and the physical support and love my amazing in-laws have provided us, my little sister for being such a wonderful employee, my brother for being an awesome emotional support for me...
*A heightened love for my friends (which my next blog will be about) and the support they provide
*And so much more.