Finishing Touches on Our Chick-fil-A!

We are so excited and feel like our heads are spinning a little bit. Life in our "hawksnest" is crazy busy. Miss Bella is even noticing the lack in her play time... poor girl. I have started my job at the hospital and am excited for the challenges and new experiences that come along with a new job. The ER is definitely a busy place, and I am thankful God has blessed me with a desire to work fast!

Chick-fil-A is rockin' and rollin' too. We open in 15 days! I am so proud of my husband and all his hard work to get us to this point. It is crazy the whirlwind roller-coaster we have been on. We have hired 70 employees. They are our people! It is so fun to meet the people we have been praying for since we started this Chick-fil-A journey. The store is also very close to complete. It is a pretty store... but we are probably a little skewed in our opinion of "pretty." Let us know what you think...

The Rivah.

Jay and I were so blessed to get a weekend away from Chick-fil-A craziness, and even more blessed to spend a weekend with Kate and Jeff. We've been friends since first grade, and it was a blast to have a "grown up weekend" at the Rivah. Now its really The River, but Kate calls it the Rivah, and she isn't the only one. All the signs leading to the Rappahannock River say "the Rivah" so whatever they want to call it we had a great weekend. There was lots of relaxing, and laughing, and swimming, and crab catching, and just enjoying being with good friends.

The Rivah

The Shack... and by shack I mean adorable, comfy little house with hydrangeas :)

Bella wondering why she just now discovered this place in in her 6 short months of life

Weighing the options of jumping in....

We were so impressed with Bella's swimming! She jumped right in on her own and loved it!

Bella: Oh man this is Dog Heaven!

I love this sweet friend! God has continued to bless our friendship over lots of years.

This guy is pretty great too :)

Somehow i didn't take a single picture of Jeff... but he was there, and he is great, and he and Jay did lots of boy things... and I think this picture might have been staged. It looks that way, huh?


Bella: Tell me again why we don't live here all the time?

Six Week Bran Muffins

Sound icky? They are so yummy... and boardline healthy! The recipe can be made and keeps for 6 weeks in the fridge. They are filling and easy to grab on a crazy morning. I am not a skip breakfast kinda girl so I love having things to grab in a hurry. My sweet mama made these a lot when were were growing up too :)

SIX WEEK BRAN MUFFINS
1 15oz Box Raisin Bran Cereal
2 1/2 Cups Sugar
5 Cups Flour
5 tsp Baking Soda
2 Tsp Salt
1 Tbl Cinnamon
1 Cup Cooking Oil
4 Eggs, Beaten
1 Quart Buttermilk



Mix dry ingredients and liquid ingredients separately. Combine and mix well. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400 for 18 - 20 minutes. Keep any extra batter for up to 6 weeks in a tightly sealed plastic or glass container. Don't freeze.

Enjoy as you're running out the door at 7 am like me :)

Waynesboro Chick Photo Update!

We've been so busy interviewing and hiring lots, and lots of people that I had not taken any pictures of our chick-fil-a in several weeks. There have been so many changes and I wanted to show y'all some of the exciting progress....
We have a paved parking lot.... and a beautiful view of the blue ridge mountains :)
The brick is finished and lookin' good... we are missing one window, and the ply-wood is making us feel a little ghetto
Walls are painted, the tile is in, and the wiring for our AC is in progress...
View looking back into the kitchen.
Front Counter area and inside drive thru area.
we're loving the tile and paint... starting to feel like a chick-fil- A.
And we have a Mop Closet! Words can describe how convenient this will be! Any extra hidden - from - customer - view space is a huge advantage... nope, it doesn't take much to make me happy!
Indoor playland will be where that ladder is currently.
And there is the best part of the whole restaurant... my man and his hard workin' mind :)

The 4 Hour Desk...

We bought a desk at Ikea. Normally we like more traditional, unique, one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture... but we had a space in our guest-room/ office that needed a corner desk. We needed something really functional and on the cheaper side. Jay will be working from home some with Chick-fil-A so we wanted a space where he could stay organized (this will take more than a new desk, but its a start!) and he would have room to spread out. We found a corner desk at ikea for well under what we were planning to spend. The desk was in four easy boxes that fit perfectly in my car. We had an hour set aside to put the thing easily together. Simple as that.

And then we opened the boxes. And we pulled out about 50 trillion pieces. And we looked at the directions... and you can't really describe black and white pictures as directions. There were no words. Only rough little sketches. It was an experience.

This is about 2 hours into the easy desk project. We had about half the main desk together, and none of the side desk. We were considering just getting in the car and driving 4 hours to Charlotte to return the crazy contraption.

Miss B was very involved and quite a huge help...

Luckily I have a very handy, and determined husband. He is wonderful and he finished our desk around 1 am.

And we're really happy with the way it tuned out. It did fit perfectly in the space we have. Good thing we decided not to pack up the 20 billion pieces and high tail it back to charlotte.

A Little Family Fun in Staunton, Virginia.

So if you come visit us, demand that we take you to Staunton. Its a cute little town with a fun downtown strip full of antique stores and unique restaurants. When my sweet second family came to visit us right after we moved in we spent an afternoon wandering around in Staunton.
We spent an hour or so in an old antique shop with a clothing shop upstairs. Now this was not any old clothing shop, it was where one would go if they were dressing for an old school tacky dinner. It was a blast and we had lots of laughs. No judgments can be made on the following photo:
I blame all shenanigans on our good friend steve spangler. we love him. Or i blame it on the smoked chicken we stopped and ate on the side of the road.yup, we're weird, but it was cooked in a smoker for lots, and lots of hours by a church group, and it was delicious.