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!

Happy Birthday . . .

. . . to the love of my life.  

 I'm so glad we get to grow old together.

Thank you for working so hard for us (you have no idea how hard he's been working . . . I'll tell you all about it soon), and for always making me laugh.

 You're the best thing that has ever happened to me.  

I'll love you forever. 

Merry Christmas!

  . . . & Happy New Year!

Look who . . .

. . . got her driver's license!  

 Oh!  Sweet Freedom  . . .

Already missing them.

~ Grandpa & Lauren ~

We're so glad they were able to come and visit!  We had such a great time and are missing them already.  

Thanksgiving

Dave's parents came to visit all the way from Oregon!  They split their time between our house and his sister, Katrina's house.  It was so good to see them and so much fun to all be together for the holidays.  Dave & I hosted the whole bunch for a wonderful Thanksgiving feast . . .

~ Carter & his Grandpa ~

~ Katrina & Nancy ~ 

~ Dave & Kevin ~

 ~ Kevin & Maggie ~

 ~ Lauren, Taylor, & Grandma ~

 ~ Katrina & Kevin ~

 ~ Seth, Lauren, Nathan, Taylor, Carter, & Matthew ~

 ~ Dan & Dave ~

~ Katrina, Halli, & Carter ~

~ Matthew, Nathan, Seth, Lauren, & Taylor ~

~ Nancy & Dan ~

 We are so thankful for family!