Let the Battle Begin

May the odds forever be in Mommy’s favor!!!

The Last Day for the Kids

I had to work on Thursday during the day.  It was my last day of working during the day (I’ll be working in the late afternoons now when Jesse gets home at my Oregon job twice a week.  I’m a worker bee – I need to have a job “outside the home”).  I had to shut down a lot of things for the business and had to run the last of the payroll.  Which also meant it was the last day the kids would be with Mrs. Carolyn and Katherine. 

Mrs. Carolyn asked if they could come to her house that day and I had no objections with that.  The kids love going there.  New environment.  New toys.  And Katherine has a pet turtle which fascinates the kids! 

I didn’t realize I was going to have such a hard time with this being their last day with Mrs. Carolyn.  I clearly remember “interviewing” Mrs. Carolyn – full on pregnant with Max… and my eyes filling up with tears telling her that I have never left Mallory with anyone like this before and I was probably going to have a hard time with it.  And here I was having a hard time leaving Mrs. Carolyn!!  : ) 

What would really get me going was when I would think that Mrs. Carolyn has been with Max since he was three weeks old!!  And now she wasn’t going to see him everyday.  He was clearly her special little boy!!  And when I look back at pictures of Mallory when she first started what a baby/toddler Mallory was!!  Tears! 

So when I dropped the kids off I warned Mrs. Carolyn that I would be back with a camera and I was going to take pictures… and I was most likely going to cry! 

I dropped the kids off.  Went to work and then before I went to get the kids I went to the store and picked out cards for each of the girls, Mrs. Carolyn, Katherine and Casey… thank you cards for helping us out.  We could not have got to where we were with out them and their help.  As I’m in the store picking out Mrs. Carolyn’s card I find one that is amazingly perfect and I start getting teary eyed right there in the store.  I go out to the truck and fill out the cards and put their gifts with the card and wow!  My emotions!  I’m now crying in the parking lot!  I’m thinking I have to get it together before I get there or my kids are not going to want to come home with me!  ; )

I couldn’t hold it together!  Mrs. Carolyn kept telling me – we are not going anywhere.  We will still see each other.  She has to come to town for Katherine’s schooling and they will stop in and see us! 

I could not tell the kids this was their last day with them.  They are probably too little and wouldn’t fully understand it.  So I just didn’t say anything.

I’m not sure if I was so emotional because it really happened.  We dreamed of it happening – selling the business and me staying home full time – and it was truly going to happen.  We did it!

But oh man!  I still get teary eyed when I think about it!

What’s Mrs. Carolyn going to do?  She homeschools two of her girls (the oldest in is college going for culinary) so as of right now she plans on just staying home and focusing on her girls and their schooling.  She said she may get a temp job – but she isn’t in a hurry.

Heart Day!

For some reason I really get into Valentine’s Morning.  I plot and plan out a fun breakfast with little presents. 

Mallory is really into Doc McStuffin.  Like really into it!  So when I found “the big book of boo boos” I freaked and thought OMG!  She is going to love this!

Max was with me when I was looking for my little treasures and he saw this Minney & Mickey car set and he wanted it… bad!

I also found these gigantic sticker books – my kids LOVE stickers!  And then I found a lalaloopsy tent on clearance and got it for Mally for her birthday – however she found it and has been asking to play with that lalaloopsy thing we haven’t played with yet.  : )  She had no idea what it was, but she thought it was game.  I included it as well.

I had Jesse pick them up balloons while we were gone at Awanas.  So I tied balloons to their chair too.

Want to know what the favorite item was?!  The balloons! 

That big book of boo boos notebook I thought Mallory was going to freak over – she looked at it for like 6.9 seconds and then she was onto Max’s gift and wanted to drive the Minney car.  He did not want to share his present with her.  So then I thought I will put up the tent for her.  Um… she crawled in it – and then out it- and then got her balloon and played with her balloon the rest of the morning!!!

Seriously!!  I was so bummed.  I work so hard at finding the perfect gifts for them and they enjoy the blasted balloons!! 

Oh and the fun placemats I found in the dollar section at Target – thinking they would love to color, do the maze, tic tac toe… while I made them breakfast… yeah not so much! 

Speaking of my breakfast!  I never set my alarm – so I didn’t get up in time to prep and get organized.  My heart pancakes – were sticking to my heart cookie cutter that I scraped that after the first one.  My strawberries – MOLDED!  Breakfast was a bust!  : )

Mallory did say thank you for all her items she received (without prompting) and it was “the best valentines day ever!” in her eyes!  Which is all that matters, right!?!

The Day After

On Wednesday, our first day of the business being gone, what did we do?  : ) 

Jesse actually called into work and took the day off because we didn’t get to bed until 3am – after they left we sat in the shop office and just took everything in and tried to process what just had happened.

We talked a bit because I had tears when they left.  I kept telling people it was like sending your first child off to college.  You spent every waking moment trying to grow and mature it – and BAM!  Gone!  Except this one doesn’t come home for visits and a home cooked meal.  : )

Jesse didn’t really have any emotional attachment to it.  He use to!  He use to eat, breathe, sleep business.  And he enjoyed it!  But once he decided to sell – he was ready.  There was no regret.   There was no attachment.

He did have a hard time when he wrote the email to all his customers informing them of the change.  All these people we had formed relationships with was now gone and we would probably never talk to them again. 

When we woke up Wednesday morning with nothing pressing to do.  We still found ourselves in our work routine of checking our emails immediately to see what pressing/crisis thing happened while we were sleeping.  Checking voicemails.  Flipping threw the caller-id.  However, this time when we did it – there was nothing.  : ) 

I had a play date with a friend and when she asked if we could get together, I actually hesitated.  Because usually I had to make sure there was nothing that needed to be done and that all our employees showed up and didn’t have questions for me or need me before I left.  Then I texted her back and said, oh heck yeah we can get together!  When I went to her house she said, I can’t wait to have more play dates with you guys.  : )

When I left I told Jesse, don’t you go crazy on me the first day.  : )  He is a go getter and isn’t one to just sit around with nothing to do.  I yelled up the stairs as I was leaving, “Need a project?”  I’ve been waiting very patiently for him to have a little free time to do my projects around the house.  ; )  He passed on my project.  It was his first day of freedom, of course he passed, right?!

He went for a random rzr ride.  He talked to his Dad on the phone.  He just sat in the silence and enjoyed the nothing-ness. 

He does have his next business plan – however, I have asked him to take a few months off to just enjoy nothing after he gets home from work.  He agreed.  : )

When I came home from our play date – everyone took a nap!  Everyone! 

It was a fantastic first day!  Relaxation we haven’t felt in so long!

Mark also called us at the end of his first day as a new business owner.  (We have a very good relationship with Mark and his wife.)  He has spent every hour, of his open business hours, on the phone with customers – except one hour!!  : )  He loved every minute of it.  Jesse said when he told him – you could tell he had a smile plastered over his face that could not be wiped away. 

A perfect match for both of us!!

Closing of a Chapter

This chapter of our lives began about 9 or 10 years ago.  : )  I can’t totally remember when it started… but somewhere in there.  Jesse and I were married.  Newly married.  We had left everything we knew and moved ourselves out to Oregon (with the help of our parents, of course).  We started out in this tiny (and I do mean tiny) 600 sq. ft. apartment that we had never seen!  We rented it online so we had a place to move into when we got there.  I remember the first time I walked in the door and I cried!  It was SO small!  We signed a six month lease – so it was all ours for six months.

Jesse was going to grad school to become a psychologist.  I was fresh from tech school with a degree to be a paralegal.  Oh man!  I was so excited to be moving to this huge city of Portland – I pictured myself totally working in the heart of the city in a huge fancy law firm living the paralegal dream!! 

I had an interview when we first got out there with a hiring firm/agency.  They very quickly landed me a temp job.  That lasted about three weeks, I think.  Their paralegal was getting married and going on a two week honeymoon – while she was gone their major billing program crashed and they didn’t have a backup.  So they hired me for another week to re-enter all their billing information.

After that three weeks – I was onto nothing!  Nothing!  Jesse had started his schooling and I was in our tiny apartment by myself not knowing a sole!  I searched for jobs and applied for jobs – all day long.  We had a beautiful pool at our apartment – but I was too scared to go to it by myself!!  Seems so stupid now – what I wouldn’t give to sit by a quiet pool in the full sunshine and read a book! 

We did that for about three or four months before I finally got an interview that looked promising.  I had started just applying for anything.  The paralegal route just wasn’t working for me – I would get interviews, but nothing came of them.  I had an interview for an accounting/office manager job.  I truly did like accounting and wanted to go to school for that – but at the last minute changed my mind  and decided I wanted to be a paralegal. 

I got the job! 

The job was going great!  Jesse’s schooling was going great!  However, we were just not getting ahead.  We decided we needed to do something and something fast!  So Jesse started an ebay account and started selling odds and ends on ebay.  One thing lead to another and he started researching online businesses and how to start one.

One day after we received our student loan money and we had some left over – he approached me to see if I would be okay if he “invested” that money into starting an online business.  I can’t remember if I hesitated or not or what exactly I told him – but he did it.  I must of said yes he could, or he wouldn’t of done it.

A few months later he found a company over in China that manufactured motorcycle alarms.  He thought he could do really well at importing them and selling them on ebay.  He had enough funds left over that he could buy 7 alarms.  He sold all 7 – turned all the profit into buying more quantities.

He was doing so well at it that he started looking into what other products could he import and sell. 

He got hooked up with a manufacture in Japan that sold a much better quality motorcycle alarm and he received sole-import rights to the product.  No one else in the United States could import it. 

Jesse did is first trade show in Indianapolis.  He flew out there (from Oregon) had is brother and his best friend meet him down there to help him out.  When we look back at the picture of him at his first show – we giggle!!  Oh how little we knew about trade shows! 

He came back with some good leads and worked on those leads and prospect customers and we actually still have those customers!!

Then he started doing some research into accent lighting and found yet another company in China that had a motorcycle accent lighting kit.  He started importing them and selling them on ebay.  They were a huge hit!

He was doing so well at ebay that he decided it was time for a website and went right to work on getting one up and running.

Now we moved back to Wisconsin and Jesse just isn’t satisfied with this lighting kit we are getting – so he redesigns it and comes up with his own design and launches it to his manufacture to see if they could make it for him.  They say yes!  Jesse buys tooling and they start manufacturing this new kit – that is Jesse’s design!

This new design is a mega huge hit!!  I now have to help him out with business and start working with him – because it is growing and one person just isn’t enough.

The business very rapidly snowballed into more and more sales.  And with that comes more and more work.  Jesse also doesn’t leave well enough alone – he starts redesigning his design and making it more sleek and adding items and bells and whistles to it to make his product stand out from the rest of the lighting kits out on the market.

Before we know it – we have a full on business that needs to be taken care of from 8am – 5pm!!  Of course when you are the business owner – those time slots don’t really happen and we are now working well into the late hours of the night.

In 2011 we hired a nanny to help me with the kids so that I could run our business.  I just could no longer keep doing both at the same time.  We also grew so much we could no longer house all this inventory in our spare room in our basement.  We had to build a massive shop in the back yard to house our inventory and office space.

Towards the middle/end of 2011 I approached Jesse and said, I can’t keep up.  I need help during the day.  It was just too much for one person to be taking all the orders, answering all the phone calls, answering all the emails, packaging/shipping all the orders.  He gave me a sales goal to meet and if we met that goal we would hire our first employee!  We made it!  We made that goal on the very last day of the year that we were open for business!!!  You can imagine the little dance I did!!

2012 started out with a bang.  We were hit hard and could hardly keep up with the demands for our product.  We hired our first employee.  His main tasks were just to keep up out in the shop.  Prep inventory and process/ship orders.  Well that quickly turned into moving him into sales.  And sales was keeping him so busy that we had to hire ANOTHER person!  We hired our second employee to work solely out in the shop and keep our inventory in check and process/ship orders. 

By August of 2012 we are driving home from church one Sunday afternoon and Jesse says, I think I want to sell the business.  WHAT?!  This totally took me off guard!  I was not expecting this at all.  I was not ready to sell.  I was just getting in my grove and was totally enjoying it.

Jesse point of view on it was this – he goes to work at the prison at 6am and gets home at 2:30pm and goes straight out to the shop and works until 5pm.  Comes and eats supper and then some nights he his back out in that shop taking care of issues/problems/customers/things that happened that day.  He stressed and worried about every little detail – like any great business owner should do.  But it was starting to take a toll on him, he couldn’t relax.  Even if nothing major was going on with the business, he was always thinking about it and the what ifs.

Plus he has a very demanding job at the prison.  Very demanding!  If you think working with criminals is an easy feat… try mentally unhealthy criminals.  ; )

We need to make a decision either he needs to come over to the business and work it full time, meaning quit the prison.  Or he needs to sell the business.  Jesse is in a loan forgiveness program at the prison and he is in it for 3 more years and it was just really hard to walk away from that.  He also said there was just no way he could take on all that stress for 3 more years of doing both.  It just wasn’t healthy for him. 

We came to the conclusion that yes – selling the business is what we needed to do.  We thought about how we wanted to go about this.  Should we put a listing out there?  Should we approach one of our current dealers/customers?

We both decided that a current dealer was the best option and we both knew exactly who we wanted to offer it too!  It wasn’t our #1 customer, but he was close to the top.  He was an excellent customer and we wanted him to have the first offer.

It happened to be time for the big bike show in Sturgis and this customer was going to it.  (Our customer lives down in Florida) so he was going to be passing threw and we asked him to meet up for supper on his way back down to Florida. 

When we met him – we approached/offered him the sale of our business and he didn’t even hesitate.  He wanted it.

About September we got the ball rolling for a sale.  Selling your business is not an easy thing to do.  The paperwork.  The waiting.  The paperwork.  The waiting.  Did I mention the waiting!  Oh the patience we had to experience!

We wanted the sale to be final on/before December 31st of 2012.  The Friday before the 31st, the sale contract was signed and on the 31st we received the down payment!  How is that for timing?  I don’t think I have ever experience such stress before!!  We didn’t count the sale final until we had that down payment in our hands.  So it was a pretty happy day on the 31st. 

We moved on with our plans and trying to figure out when we were going to get our buyer back to Wisconsin to have a quick training session and then turn everything over to him.  We had agreed upon February, since we had already signed (& paid for) a trade show in Indianapolis.  The buyers were going to be coming up for that show, so we would just switch everything over a few days before that.

Our buyers arrived on Monday, February 12th for their training.  It was such an incredibly stressful day.  Long story short – banks were not working with us so we had to get a lawyer involved on Monday morning to write up contracts for us. 

By Tuesday late afternoon the contract was signed by all the parties and the sale was “officially” complete!  So now we had to load everything (and I do mean everything) up into the trailer and send them on their way.

We worked until 2:30 am loading up that trailer!!

After everything was loaded I had to take some pictures.  This was a huge day in our lives.  We (mostly Jesse) created this business from the ground up.  He spent so many restless, sleepless nights thinking about this business and how to make it bigger and better.  He spent so many countless hours working on it – so many countless hours!  He missed out on things because he had the business!  He couldn’t do things because he had the business!

With the business went our trailer.  Jesse designed the graphics for it.  (My Mom took the 3 pictures on the right.)

Our buyer (Mark) with Jesse handing it over.

A picture of all four of us.  Please remember these pictures were taken at 2am!  : )  We are beyond exhausted after the two days we had.

Everything about our business is in this trailer!  As you can see we started throwing extras in… tables – carts!  They were headed to a trade show the next day – they needed that stuff!  Mark did bring his bike up so that he had a bike on display at the show.  That is in there amongst all the inventory.  All the inventory is in the very front of the trailer.  We had grown from ordering 7 alarms and about 10 light kits… to ordering 500 light kits and thousands of pieces of accessories to go with it! 

Mark will forever have Jesse with him – this is Jesse on his snowmobile on the back of the trailer.  We asked Mark if he was going to get rid of this graphic and he said, hell no.  : )  He lives down in Florida- so this will look totally funny down there.  But he loves the graphic and it draws a ton of attention because at first glance it looks as if we left the trailer doors open.  My Mom also took the picture for this.

Jesse hitching the trailer to Mark’s truck.  To me this was just the true moment – that it was really happening!

Driving out of the shop!  Our shop looks and feels totally funny with nothing in it.  I’m actually having a play date on Monday to let our kids ride bikes – since there is snow here the kids don’t get to ride bikes – so they all should love it!  : )

Before Mark left he asked if he could just sit on Jesse’s snowmobile and get his picture taken.  He has never been on a snowmobile before.  Jesse told him NO!  He had to ride it!  : )  Mark was hesitant because, remember it is 2am!  He didn’t want to disrupt the neighbors.  Jesse told him, my neighbors are use to my non-sense.  Jesse went out in the RZR to show Mark where to go and Mark followed behind on the sled. 

Mark came back with the biggest smile on his face!  He wanted his picture now!  Jesse turned the lights on for him.  : ) 

Riding a snowmobile was on his bucket list- now it is crossed off.

We then said our good byes and we walked out to the driveway to watch them leave.

Everything we worked so hard for in the last 9 or 10 years… driving away.

We have no worries that Mark is going to kill it!  He is going to do better then we did with this business!  He is an excellent business man!  And he attends all the bike events and even rides a motorcycle.  He looks the part.  Jesse didn’t ride motorcycles, he didn’t attend the events and he didn’t look the part.  : )  Mark is going to rock it!

Jesse will still be working behind the scenes for a few months with Mark.  Mark also asked me to check in on them about once a week to make sure they were keeping their inventory in check.  So we will be with them for a while – but without all the stress!  : ) 

I need to put all the attention and the success of this business and the success of this sale to God.  There is no way we did this on our own.  God was totally with us each step of the way!  When we look back over the years – there is no doubt that his fingerprint is in it all!  All the praise goes directly to Him!

Wheee! So Fun!

Finally got to blow up her snow tube that she got for Christmas and go sledding!

So the cool spot at our house is the brand new sidewalk!  It has perfect slope and curve!

Lets watch her go!

She loved it!

Then Shorty woke up from his nap and insisted that he have his own tube blown up.  Sharing was not an option.

Jesse had to go back to work so then I attempted to push them both and take pictures.

They got hit with head colds this week – so Max is a little gross, I apologize.

Maxwell some how convinced Mallory to carry his tube up for him.  I believe he told her it was “heaby” (heavy).

Then I got distracted and started wondering around in the snow with my camera trying to take pictures (which was NOT working) and Mally figured out how to go down on her belly!

So then Max wanted to try.

Except his tube shot out from under him when he would flop down.

So I tossed him on it and gave him a push.

I was ready to come in and Max was ready to come in.  Mallory was not.  She was loving it.

When I finally talked them into coming in for some chocolate milk – Max got distracted by the lawn mower.  Threw his gloves off and started climbing up.

Pretty sure by the end of this summer Max will be able to mow the lawn himself!

After supper Mallory requested to go back outside to do more sledding.  It was dark out now, but she didn’t care.  I thought maybe we could go for a RZR ride instead.  THEN!  I had the most brilliant idea!  : )  Why don’t we load the tubes inside the RZR and drive over to the big sledding hill and surprise her!  So we did!  She loved it!  Down and up, down and up, down and up.  And ended with a great big ride around the woods in the dark.  They loved every minute of it.  Mallory kept telling Jesse “Don’t go home yet.”  They love adventure these two, and the cold isn’t going to stop them!!

The Phase Of…

We are in the (hopefully very short) phase of… I WANT THAT TOY YOU ARE PLAYING WITH!!!!!  And I’m going to grab onto it while it is still in your hands and we are going to battle over it!

It makes me want to scream!

Oh who am I kidding – I do scream!

Bubbles… Frozen Style

The kids got early Valentines presents the other weekend from Auntie Steffie.  In them were bubbles.  Well they had to carry their bubbles home, in their hands.  Then when we got home they thought it was bubble bath and wanted to take a bath.  They left them in the bathroom – to which I scooped them up and hid them because I could just envision bubbles all over the basement. 

Fast forward a few days and they found the bubbles!!!  We had all the kids here that day (our nanny’s kids and our sales guy’s kids) and they were playing hide ‘n seek and found the bubbles AND found hidden birthday presents for the kids!!!  Ahhh!!!  I came in from work and they had bubbles and Mallory was requesting us to play with la-la-loopsy!!  NO!!  Apparently no place is off limits when it comes to hide ‘n seek.  You would think they would be afraid to crawl underneath the basement steps in the dark… nope!  They take one of Max’s toy motorcycles that the headlights turn on (for 3 seconds) when you push a button.

Mallory has been bugging to go blow bubbles now that she knows it is not bubble bath.  Well I decided that since Jesse would be home from work early (he gets done an hour earlier on Fridays) and I thought it might be “warmer” by then we could blow bubbles. 

I was hoping it wasn’t going to be too warm because I wanted to blow them and watch them freeze!

Jesse came home and it was 3 below zero out and we bundled up and headed out to try it.

Don’t be fooled by the advertising on these bubbles.  “NO SPILL”  Oh I laugh!  I laugh real hard!  Jesse broke Max’s – spilled.  Then I open Mallory’s and spilled it all over the bathroom floor.  Then it made a huge mess… outside. 

Mallory was having trouble getting it to work – so Jesse tried it out.

She got it!!

Blowing bubbles!

Meanwhile Jesse decided to build up Frosty again.  He had melted and fell over.

And then send him flying!

Daddy is the coolest in Maxwell eyes… after hanging out with us girls all day long!

Max requested to do it again!  Boys!

She is still blowing bubbles.

And then…

we totally destroyed frosty.  Oh the man/boy noises that were made!

Bubbles are just so fascinating to little kids.  They can’t get enough of them.

I’d like to point out that Jesse is wearing THREE jackets!  Cold!  Cold!  Cold!

Did the bubbles freeze?  Well not at first.  But the longer we were out there we started noticing them freezing and popping differently.  So then we tried catching one.  And Jesse caught a frozen one!!

Showing Mallory.

One last picture before I declared I was now frozen and needed to go in.  I was wearing very thin fingerless gloves so I could run the camera.  Not smart!