Mother's Day Lunch

I took my beautiful mother to lunch at the Olive Garden for an early Mother's Day lunch as I'll be out of town over Mother's Day weekend.  We had a great time.  I love her so much.  She is definitely the best woman I know.  They are headed back to Wyoming soon.  I'm sure going to miss her!

Turkeys Hunting . . .

Over the past few weeks, Dave has been alternating taking Carter & Taylor turkey hunting.  Carter didn't get one but had a great time!  He said, "This is intense!"  

~ Carter & Dave ~

Taylor, however, did get one!

As did Dave!

We grilled the meat and made fajitas.  It was fabulous!  And we still have some in our freezer.  Yum.

Prom

Taylor's first Prom . . . 

~ Taylor & York ~

 They went to dinner, to the dance, and then to a friends home to play games.  She had a great time & looked gorgeous!

Bang!

Our families favorite game is Bang!  What's your favorite?

Visitors, Baptism, & our fifteen minutes of fame lived vicariously through Luke.

We had three special surprises in March.  First, Dave's sister's little boy decided he wanted to be baptized into our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. The Mormon church) .  They have been inactive most of his life but have recently been coming back to church., and taking the missionary discussions.  None of their kiddos have been baptized so we were all really excited when Matthew decided he wanted to be baptized.  Which leads us to our second surprise . . . Dave's parents came down for the baptism meaning we got to see them again!

And third, while they were visiting, Dave's cousin, Luke Matheny, happened to be in Austin for a panel for the sitcom Maron.  Luke directed several of the episodes.   In 2011, Luke won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for his film God of Love.  So, we all met up with Luke for dinner.    He is the spitting image of a younger version of Dave's dad (with lots & lots of hair).  He looks more like Dave's dad than any of the Matheny kids.  It is almost uncanny!  :)  Their mannerisms, etc, were the same too.  Wild.

~ Kevin, Katrina, Luke, Halli, & Dave ~

~ The whole gang ~

 Taylor is really into all things theater so she was beyond excited to meet him!  Dave hadn't seen him since they were in high school and I had never met him so it was so fun to all get together.  He's quite the character, that Luke. (If you want to see his Oscar Speech, click here.)  He's currently producing his first feature film starring Chevy Chase and Matt LeBlanc.  So, not only am I related to someone  kinda famous (in a round about way) but I now have the inside scoop on Chevy and Matt!  Ya baby.

Taylor still plays with dolls . . .

Just kidding!  She's never played with dolls which saddened me a bit as I loved dolls as a little girl.  Taylor is taking Child Development this year.  For one of their projects, they get to take home a baby for the weekend.  These are not regular dolls, they are little computers.  They record everything from feedings, sleep, amount of time spent crying, diaper changes, etc.  If you drop their head or accidentally hit their head, it's recorded.  You can not turn them off.  They cry, coo, etc.  It's pretty funny.  Their grade is based on how well the baby is taken care of.   Taylor & her friend, Emily, chose to bring home their babies on the same weekend.  It was so funny to see them try to get through a two hour movie . . . I think it took 3 1/2 hours!  :)   

 By the end of the weekend, they were exhausted!  :)  

Basketball

Have I mentioned that Carter LOVES basketball?  He eats, sleeps, breathes it.  We just finished a league and have started a select team.  He has his first tournament this weekend.  Luckily, it does not fall on Sunday.  When we signed up for the league, we did not realize they played on Sundays.  Carter was upset when I told him, "we don't play basketball on Sunday so if the games fall on Sunday, we'll have to miss them."  He thought we would make an exception . . . sorry bud!

Solutions

Our dog, Maggie . . . 

. . . was eating all of the cat food.  So, I asked my dad to make me a top for the dog crate so I could put the cat food on it.  This is what he made for us . . .

Isn't it gorgeous!  He's so talented.  And it keeps Maggie out of their food!

 Problem solved . . . thanks dad!

Lauren Turned Twelve!

On February 22nd, my baby turned TWELVE YEARS OLD!!!!  I can't believe it.  She is such a great girl and we love her so much.  One of our favorite comedians, Brian Regan, was in Austin on her birthday so we bought tickets and went to see him.  Our good friends, The Macleods, went too.  We all went out to dinner at the Olive Garden first . . . 

 Then headed to see Brian Regan!

 We've watched tons of his videos on You Tube (if you want to watch our favorites click here and here) so I was a little worried that we had heard most of his jokes but he did all new stuff.  He is hilarious and his jokes are clean.  If you ever get a chance to see him, I highly recommend it.  We all laughed so hard our stomach's hurt!

Afterwards, we came home and had cake and ice cream.  I got the trick candles that you can't blow out.  It was classic!  :)  

 The following weekend, she had a slumber party that started at Austin's Park and Pizza and ended at our house . . .

 It was fun!

Scenes from our Grand Opening

 ~ Dave with the AAC Reps ~

~ Mike Mers (Sales Manager for AAC) is interviewed on the radio ~

~ CEO of SilencerCo & SWR,  Joshua Waldron, & Hayden Henderson ~

 ~ Halli & Erin Macleod ~

Silencer Shop Grand Opening

Right now, our life is all about Silencer Shop.  It's been crazy, and I haven't had any spare time to blog.  I've missed it!  :)  But, I'm starting to see the "light at the end of the tunnel" and getting a bit more balance in my life.  So, hopefully, I'll start blogging more often again!  I have a lot of  "catch up" to do!

At the end of February, we had our Grand Opening.  It was a great week for us and things went well.  Two of the manufacturers sent sales reps for the event, which was pretty cool.  SilencerCo even sent their CEO.  While they were here, they interviewed us . . . if you want to read it, click here.

It's been a wild ride and we are so excited to see what the future holds!  I hope to be blogging regularly again now that the craziness has passed!  I've missed y'all!

Silencer Shop

Have you noticed that I haven't blogged much lately?  Remember when I said that we've (especially Dave)  been working really hard?  It's true.  I haven't had time.   At the end of October, Dave quit his programming job at VMWare to run our business, Silencer Shop, full time.   And, it's been a bit crazy.  But, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We've been running it out of our house but are literally busting at the seams.  So, we leased a space and we should be able to start moving in next weekend!  We are super excited!  

We are also in the process of hiring several more employees and have been training our manager for the past couple of weeks.  I don't think we've ever been this busy.  Hopefully, things will calm down a bit after our Grand Opening which will be at the end of February.

We were contacted by Kevin Fowler as he wanted to be our "spokes person" which was super exciting.  So, he is doing our radio ads.  Here's a couple of them . . .

~ and ~

What do you think?  It's been a fun, stressful, crazy, scary, exciting ride.  Neither Dave or I have ever wanted to own a business.  Sometimes, we still can't believe we're doing this!