July Wrap Up + Family Update

Hey friends! I’m committing to blogging weekly as we enter into the last half of the year- So I’m posting this here so you guys can hold me accountable! I know a lot of people are constantly asking for updates on our store and our lives so I’m going to post a summary each month that includes all of our family and life updates. So here’s a quick recap of what happened in July.

We partied hard this summer and did lots of hosting. In July, we had at least one event or gathering hosted at our home each week! It was incredible and I absolutely love hosting, but I’m also really ready to welcome the routine and structure that the fall brings. We also helped some of our friends/neighbors move this past month which was a joy to see them become homeowners in our favorite little town of SMV. Fred and I also got to have a weekend getaway thanks to my sweet sister being willing to be on Aunt duty for FOUR kids for a weekend. Aren’t Aunts the best?!

Fred and I traveled to south Georgia and hiked Providence Canyon (known as the little grand canyon of the south). It’s a beautiful hike but I think the reason I really liked it, is cause it was a kid free hike. We also stayed at a place that had a pool so it was a great weekend to reconnect with each other and refresh us before we enter into this next really busy season.

But back from our trip meant back to reality and back to opening our store front. We were supposed to move in on the first of the month but for some reasons that I’m not going to disclose here, that date was delayed. Now we are supposed to be getting the keys tonight (EEK!!) and the rest of the month will be spent preparing the space for opening. I’ll be sure to share before and after pictures and document our journey of getting the store ready in a separate post. But to answer all the questions we have been getting, Yes! We are still trying to get the store open. We started this process in March and have hit many bumps along the way including having to move to a new location. The silver lining being, the new location is much larger and on the ‘healthiest’ block of town. We are thankful to still be about a 3 minute walk from the new store and can’t wait to finally get this thing open. It has been a huge, at times dramatic, ordeal (so goes life in a small town) but I am confident that this is what God has called me to do and I’m answering the call even on days I want to send that s*** to voicemail. We are grateful to have a community of neighbors and friends who have supported us in various ways throughout this entire process and also our customers who have been so patient and supported us by shopping online. Thank you everyone who has helped along the way and we hope to be able to share grand opening details with you soon.

In other news, the kids are doing great. Eowyn missed the cut off to start public school this year so we are going to be keeping her home with us another year. I’m going to attempt to do something I swore I would never do and I’m going to be doing some home school curriculum with her this fall. I’m trying to prepare her so when she does start Pre-K she feels confident. A lot of people have asked us what we plan to do for childcare and why our kids aren’t in day care. The reason our kids are not in day care is multi-faceted but the largest one being it would cost around $1500 a month for a half day program for all three kids. The second reason being, we don’t have to have it and $1500 is a lot of money for something you don’t absolutely require. Thankfully Fred and I both have super flexible work schedules at the moment and have been able to share in both working full time outside of the home and both working full time in the home. We also have a fabulous babysitter/nanny that’s been helping us fill in the gaps for when we both need to be gone. It turns out, once you have three kids a nanny is a lot more affordable than sending all three to daycare! We also want to offer some kids classes in our store to make the village a bit more “kid friendly” and we want our kids to be a part of that. Ultimately, I want our kids to be around the business as much as possible so they can learn the value of owning a business and the importance of having women in positions of leadership. The more that I can model that for my kids (especially my daughters) the better. I want them to have leadership skills, problem solving skills and people skills because they’ve seen them in action and what better ways to introduce these than through small business?

So there was a not-so-quick recap of July + Our summer! We didn’t really take a summer vacation but we were able to squeeze in a few day trips and weekend getaways here and there. We also were able to catch up on a lot of home organization projects which was so nice! Fred is still loving his new job and is about to finish training in a month or two. Here’s a few of my favorite moments captured over the summer including a shot from our yoga at the park series which has been a huge hit in the community and a great way to make yoga accessible to ALL.