(A nice visit)Last Saturday we had a nice visit at our ice cream shop from some of our friends from church. The Grady and Nelson families stopped by for some ice cream and a short visit. We had a good visit with them which lasted about an hour. Speaking of hours we've extended our open hours. We are now open Mondays from noon to nine, Wednesday to Friday four to nine, and Saturdays from noon to eight. We close on Sunday and Tuesday.

Its hot. The temp has reached 100 F. And unlike Texas where we used to live, here in Iowa its a humid heat. This morning Dad, Joseph, and I went over to work at the house. We were scraping and painting the front of the garage. By the time we finished both Dad and I had soaked shirts. I think the hottest weather I've been in was when it got up to 120 in Texas. Thankfully we had a house with a pool. But the was pretty warm.

Father's Day

I thought I'd take a break from my usual topic to do a post on the holiday tomorrow. I just want to say here that I'm very grateful for my dad. Someone came into our ice cream shop today who told us that his relationship with his dad is pretty strained. He was not much older than I am so it gave me a picture of what I can be thankful for. Thinking about that reminded me of a poem I wrote to my Dad when I was about eight for Father's Day. Here it is below:

"My Dad is my best friend,

I will always let him in,

Into my house he will come,

To make him feel at home I'll hum."

I thought the idea behind that poem really summed up how I feel in regard to my Dad. Sure there are tough times but we always are able to talk about it and sort it out.

But his post would not be complete without me writing this. I am grateful for my earthly father but I am even more grateful for my heavenly Father. He has been good to me more than words can describe. I dearly love both my heavenly Father and my earthly father.

We're open!

Well we we're able to open today. We had an excellent day of sales. It seems like the cones and "combines" were the favorite but we did sell quite a few hot dogs(over 40). We are somewhat concerned because the ice cream mix we received this morning is already half gone. And we still have tomorrow and Saturday that we'll be open. Our next shipment is scheduled for next Thursday. Hopefully it'll last till then but we're not sure. We were able to go pick up our sign today and get it installed. It isn't totally complete but the sign guy said he can finish it in place tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow I'd better get to bed since I got less than five hours of sleep last night.

Another day closer to opening day

Toady's work actually began last night. A lot of us didn't get to bed till early this morning. I personally didn't make it to bed till around 3:45AM. We were working to get the building ready for the health inspector who came this morning. We passed the inspection which we are all very happy about. So we still plan to open tomorrow. The ice cream machine was delivered today but we're still working to get all the electrical and plumbing hookups made. We actually spent a good part of this afternoon in Atlantic trying to find the right electrical plugs for the connections. we ended up getting one of them there but the second one we needed we got from a local electrician. We plan to open at 2:00PM tomorrow and go till 9:00PM. For starting out our plan is to open Thursday through Saturday. We will probably stay open longer on Saturdays(probably opening around 11:00AM). Our sign still isn't completed but is supposed to be finished tomorrow. I still don't have pictures to load but I'll try and get them soon.

Stolen Card Info

Today my bank called to say that they noticed some strange activity on my debit card. It appears someone got the information and began making online purchases with it. It was actually my card for the business and it added up to quite a bit of money(over $1000). They cancelled the purchases and the card. The only problem was this happened while I was in town doing business shopping so I became severely limited. You don't realize how dependant you get on modern technology until you lose it. Our Internet computer has been acting up lately because of some viruses. And we still plan to open later this week. It will be a miracle if we can get everything together in time

A Day of Shopping

After taking a CLEP test this morning I spent the rest of the day doing shopping for the start up supplies for the business. Most of my shopping was done at Sam's Club. We got two large cart fulls of everything from ice cream toppings, to coffee supplies, to sundae cups. Of course everything comes in bulk so that adds to the size. Our ice cream machine is supposed to be ready Monday or Tuesday, the ice cream mix is supposed to be delivered Thursday, our sign was supposed to be finished this week, and we have the health inspector coming next Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to my day of rest on Sunday. I'm not sure if i could survive without it. Well all our supplies need to be unloaded so I'd better go.

Flooring and the Bible

Well we had the chance to apply some Scripture to our work last night on the flooring. We only worked till about 1:30AM. We would have worked later but we have neighbors living in an apartment on the other side of the wall from us. We got to a point where we needed to do some hammering and realized that they probably wouldn't appreciate it since they were probably asleep. I guess that comes under "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Let each of you look out not only for his own interests but also for the interests of others". We were able to finish the rest of the flooring today so now we're moving on to the trim. That's Caleb's forte so I was working on my own forte most of today(electrical and plumbing). I've pretty much replaced all the drain plumbing in the entire building. It used to be cast iron pipe which was pretty stopped up. So I've replaced it with PVC. And of course all the old iron supply pipes were replaced with PEX. This evening I'm beginning the ordering process for all the different supplies we need for start up. It's quite a bit of stuff.

Flooring

Well tonight Caleb and I plan to do an all-nighter getting the floor installed downstairs. It's vinyl but goes together like a laminate wood floor. It's pretty nice looking once you put it down. I'll post a picture later. For those of you who don't know what an all-nighter is that's basically when we work as late as we can until we're too tired to keep going(which is usually around 3:00AM to 4:00AM). The building is looking more and more like an ice cream shop. Like I said earlier I'll try and get some pics posted soon. While working on the building we enjoy listening to good music CDs. Tonight Caleb got the soundtrack for "The Widows Might" so we'll probably listen to that a couple dozen times. Well I'd better finish and get down there so that we can get started. And by the way for those of you who haven't heard of "The Widows Might" it's a great family friendly movie.

New to Blogspot

Well I'm starting my first blog. I know quite a few friends who are on blogspot so I figured I'd start my own. I'm not promising very frequent posts but I'll try. Right now we're super busy getting the business ready to open. We're hoping to open near the end of this month. And we still have lots to do before then. Most of it is just making all the purchases. Sams Club has been a big help in finding alot of our bulk items. Right now we're doing the finishing touches on the renovation work(flooring, moulding, doors, fixtures, ect.). The ice cream machine is supposed to be ready later this week. We finally got an approved design for our sign so that should be completed later this week. Below is the final design.