Finally Time to Take a Breath...

Wow, I don't even know how long it has been since my last post.  These past few weeks feel like a blur to me.  All the days blended together and felt like they were all one very long day with a few naps in between.  Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how this experience of opening our new location would be.

On paper I had everything planned out so smoothly.  Each day I had a list of things to do, people to meet, accounts to set up and turn on, etc.  Let me just say...nothing happened like we had planned.  Inspections didn't pass, people got sick, people didn't show up, wires weren't pulled through walls during construction that were needed for things, etc, etc, etc.  Before I knew it, I felt like I was being swallowed by the stress and overwhelming task that Kevin and I were facing to pull everything together and open in time for our patients that were scheduled and waiting to see us.

Thank the Lord, my mother-in-law offered to come up from Austin to help us.  At the time, I had no idea just how much we would be needing her help.  I can not tell her enough how much I appreciate all of her time, energy and help that she so graciously poured into helping us get through one of the most difficult weeks of our lives.  

I know many of you are surprised I am calling it difficult rather than exciting.  Trust me, I was surprised too.  I had envisioned a busy, but fun and exciting week!  Let me just say that in a nutshell we were VERY short on time, several inspections didn't pass and by the time we got the certificate of occupancy and got the place all cleaned up from the mess that the construction crew left behind we had literally hours to get all the equipment delivered and working, bring at least 10 car loads of stuff from home to move into the practice, get the computers connected and running with software, phone lines working, fax working, internet working, and did I mention that poor Kevin had to assemble almost every single piece of furniture that we bought!  Holy moly- it was craziness! And trust me---nothing worked the first time!  We had problems with everything from phones, to fax, to alarms, plumbing leaks, electrical problems, speaker problems, internet connection problems....you name it, it happened! Again, if my mother-in-law had not been there to help us, I really don't know how we would have pulled it off!

Oh and did I mention we also had to move out of the old location we were in?  Everything happened so fast that I barely even thought to pick up my camera at all.  I was truly in survival mode.  We only came home to sleep and let the dog out.  We were gone from morning until 10:00 or 11:00 at night most days that week! 

Here's some pics to sum up this journey...

6 months ago we were moving into our temporary location!  

At that time we really thought it was only going to be for about 2 months! HA!

Kevin got his first office all set up! 

 It was so tiny...only 80 square feet!  It was like working out of a closet, but we totally loved it and we were soooo excited!

After a couple of months, we extended our lease since the construction was delayed (again) and we moved into a larger office with a window...ahhh, much nicer and more room to breathe!

That worked well for several more months, we extended the lease (again, b/c construction was delayed, again)

Finally, 6 months after the journey began, it was time to move out.

I can't believe how fast we packed it all up.  We were sooo tired at this point.

It was bittersweet to say goodbye.  I stood in the doorway and remembered all the days we walked into this office together and all the dreams that we shared here.  

This is where it all began.

But, we were definitely ready for the next step!

We drove to the new office, ready to move in and set up!  We were so happy....but...

...that was the morning of our final and most important inspection...

We were waiting to get our certificate of occupancy and unfortunately, we did not get it.  We were told that the city was requiring a 3rd party energy inspection.  Of course, this meant that we lost another day and everything we had planned was now completely thrown off course, again!

So the next day our contractor had the energy inspection and then the city came back and low and behold they issued us the certificate of occupancy we had been waiting for!

Finally it was ours to move into and open up for business...IN LESS THAN 24 MORE HOURS!!!  YIKES!!!!!!!

We had car loads and car loads of things to bring from home!

All our bedrooms and even our hallway was spilling over with furniture, decorations and equipment for the new office.  

In addition to that, the office was in need of a MAJOR cleaning!  The dust from the construction was unbelievable and was covering everything!  My mother-in-law worked so hard to help us clean the wood floors.  Eventually we ended up hiring a crew of 3 ladies who had to scrub the floors on their hands and knees for 4 hours to get all the dust up!  Thank God for them, they were amazing!

Wow, can you tell that I have barely had any sleep in this picture! haha!

Finally after the cleaning, it was time to move everything in, assemble furniture and hang stuff on the wall!  Did I mention we are like 12 hours away from opening at this point!

Here is a sneak peak...

Waiting room.

We were still waiting for the sign to be installed on the back wall that day!

Hallway.

Kevin is frantically scraping paint the off the glass that the workers left behind b/c the glass guy is coming to put frost on the doors any minute!

Here is Kevin's office!  The furniture is supposed to be delivered anytime, and oh yea, the chiropractic equipment is on it's way too!  Can you imagine doing all this and having patients the next day???????  Crazy!!!

All the equipment finally arrived, and of course some of it was wrong and the company has to fix it, but we got it and that's all that matters, right?

Later that day the sign was installed, the alarm was working again (did I mention it broke?), the frost was put on the doors, Kevin built I don't even know how many pieces of furniture, we got the computers set up and at some point my mother-in-law headed back to Austin.  

I can't even remember how it all happened now, and I might be a little off on some of this because I truly was barely holding it all together, but somehow, someway we opened on Thursday with a functional office!  There was still more decorating to do and more things to finish, but we did as much as we could and we were open! 

Since then, I have not even picked up a camera (shocking, I know!)

The endless to-do list and ongoing problems have continued throughout this week and Kevin and I are still running around trying to do a million things!  I will take some pics of the finished office soon though!

Even though this post has been a bit of a venting post, let me just say that no matter what the challenges have been, God has been there to see us through them.  We thank Him so much for all that he has done and this journey He is taking us on.  We are so VERY excited for what the future holds and so grateful for this experience.

I would also like to thank our families for their support in this journey.  Without their encouragement and love this would have been so very difficult.

I also want to thank our friends for their support and understanding if we have been unable to keep in touch and visit as much as we would have liked to.  This has been all-consuming and continues to be for a while.  We can't wait for it to all become normal again!  So I really do apologize for turning down invitations for girls nights, dinner with friends, etc.  I am sorry if I haven't called or emailed in a while.  I really do feel so bad about that.  But, I will get back on track again, once things settle down.

That's all for tonight!  Have a great week everybody! :)