Here is a shot of Josh sporting a Canon 20D with 70-200 f4.0L lens at the zoo:
Josh and Jonah both took some great shots!
The local paper (the Gazette) did a write up on our coffee shop Friday! This was a complete surprise to us! The Gazette has a newsprint magazine called Go! magazine that is inserted in the Friday edition. It has all of the weekend entertainment items in it like what bands are playing, what plays/shows are at the Pikes Peak Center, restaurant reviews, movie info, etc... At some point in time, the person who writes restaurant reviews for the Gazette came in and checked us out, without telling us. She wrote a great review and it was in GO on Friday!
Jeff Caylor played live in our shop on Friday night. He is a great musician and we really enjoyed listening to him. He will be back again on July 14th...
We lost the second of our original five employees this weekend. Her husband came back from Iraq and is having difficulties with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Please pray for them, and for all of our soldiers/military personnel returning home. Many will have trouble with their experiences, and it will be a very difficult transition for many families... Please pray for the troops who are still there, or will be deploying soon. They need our prayers, thoughts, and good will.
We set a new record for total sales last week! It would be nice to continue that this week, but I know it won't happen with the 4th of July coming up. Holidays kill our business...
We recharged our espresso machine water softener on Saturday at the end of the day. When Tracy opened the store this morning, she had saltwater coming out of the espresso machine. She called me at home at 6:30am and I came to the shop and removed the water softener, then flushed the espresso machine brew heads (x3), steam wands (x2) and the hot water port for two hours to clear out all of the salt. What a bunch of craziness... Tracy found out about the problem when our first espresso drink customer about choked when he took his first sip... Bummer... All is fixed and working now, but I am going to purchase and install a water filtration system for the espresso machine and not reinstall the softener/conditioner system that came with it. It is necessary for facilities using well water, or very hard water, but that is not us...
Update on the rental house: I finished framing the new walls in the downstairs bathroom to separate it from the utility room. I started installing sheetrock, and will be trying to wrap that up tonight and tomorrow. Then comes texture and paint, floor tile, sink & vanity, toilet, base trim, and shower stall tile. Still much to do... Once that room is complete, I can move on to framing closets for the downstairs bedrooms. The previous owners finished the basement on the 'budget plan'. They put metal bars along one wall, held up by bare 2x4's. It looks crummy, but it was functional, which is all they were going for. An appraiser will not consider those three rooms as bedrooms unless they have a formal closet. Even though the square footage is there, the appraised value of the house will not be as high without those officially being called closets.
It has been difficult to make significant progress there due to having the kids, coffee shop needs, etc. Our neighbor Angie is going to watch the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00am to 4:00pm so I can work on the house! Thanks Angie!
I would also like to thank Vange and Tim who are covering shifts at the shop due to Nikki's departure without giving notice. Vange worked with Tracy at Starbucks and also manages/runs the cafe/restaurant in our church. Tim our brother-in-law worked at Starbucks once upon a time (10 years ago or so). He is now a school teacher and is out for the summer. He is going to help us fill some empty shifts as well. We can't say enough to thank the two of you for helping us out in a crunch!
Well, lots to do, and not enough time to do it all. Gotta run!
Take care,
JD
PS - Reminder to pray for Nikki and her family, as well as our troops!
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