Dave went on a business trip...

Some of you might know by now that my husband has his own business. He's a CFP (Certified Finacial Planner). He does investments, mutual funds, RESP, RDSP, mortgages... you know all that financial stuff. He's doing really well and I'm very proud of his success so far. But that's not his only business.One of his old mission companions, Al, decided to move up here for a few months to go into business with Dave. While he was here, they decided to...

are you ready for this...
make an online quilt shop. Yes you heard me correctly, QUILTING, as in cottage-grandma-homemade-sewing-patchwork-fabric... ya!So I Al's mother and sisters are really into quilting and had started a little quilt shop in their small town, and Al and Dave thought it would work well if they had an online shop too. For 5 long months (while I was pregnant) they sat in Dave's office, in their pj's working day in and day out on this online shop. At first I was REALLY upset that they were doing this. I thought "they're both so talented. Why are they wasting their time (during a recession) on a stupid quilt shop? Who cares about quilts any way? They're old fashioned and you can buy them for cheap at Sears already made up." I was so annoyed that Al came up here, and totally threw Dave off his focus. I wanted Dave to work on his financial business and quit this online crap. Any way, I ignored them and never even went onto the website they made. It had been up and running for months and I had never visited the site because I was so annoyed.Then one day I decided to check out their selection of Christmas fabric because I wanted to make a Christmas craft. Well... I was shocked! The website was amazing. They did such a great job!!! The fabric selection was amazing too. I never knew that quilting fabric could be so beautiful. On top of that, I started watching the YouTube tutorials that Al's mother and sisters made. They explained all kinds of quilting techniques and ideas, and showed how easy it could be. I totally got bit by the quilting bug! Dave then told me that other quilters were loving their website too and on their busiest day they had 2500 sales!! Holy heck, I never knew quilting was so popular!

I promptly ordered some fabric for myself and got started on 2 quilts. The first one was for Joseph, and the other was for me. I used a fabric "jelly roll" called Flag Day Farm for Joseph's, and a "layer cake" called Fig and Plum for mine. I have to say, Fig and Plum is my all time favorite fabric line and I so wish I had yards and yards of the fabric. It's just plain gorgeous! When I was making the Fig and Plum quilt, Rosie came into the room and pushed a few buttons on the sewing machine. I didn't notice that she had adjusted the stitch and I went on sewing. I was done 27 out of 35 blocks when I realized what she had done and it NEEDED to be fixed! I was devastated to learn that I would have to pick out every seam and start over. It was a time consuming task, but I did it, and was so happy to see the end results.

So, my quilt tops were done and all that needed to be done was get some batting and backing fabric and sew the layers together. I wanted to wait until Dave or Al could bring them to Missouri, to the shop to have them machine quilted on their special long arm quilter. Finally Dave went on his business trip to Missouri last week and brought my quilts with him. Al's mother put them in the machine and finished the binding for me, and what an amazing job she did! I just couldn't stop looking at them because they turned out so beautifully!
Well, while Dave was gone for 4 days in Missouri, I stayed home with the kids. We went to visit Shannon and she showed me her freshly painted bedroom. I said "man, I wish Dave would let me paint our house. He always says we don't NEED to do it." Then Shannon suggested that we surprise Dave and paint while he's gone haa haa haa. I totally agreed that it would be so sneaky and fun and look great, so I got in the car, drove to the paint store and picked up some green paint. I had them color match cooking apple green by Farrow and Ball. The nerdy guy at the paint counter was totally hitting on me (I'm still flabbergasted as to why he would hit on a mother of 2, while I was dressed in old jeans and a zip-up hoodie). He told me he would come over and paint for me, said I certainly didn't look like woman who just had 2 kids, and that the "ginos" who just walked by were totally checking me out and that actually all the guys in the store were checking me out. CREEPY!

That night Shannon came over to help me paint after the kids went to bed. My friend Adam (who I've been running with) also came over to help paint. I also decided, that my ugly honey oak cupboards needed to be painted white, to match better with the green, so I started that too. The whole time I was painting I was thinking "oh man, Dave is going to be so pissed! He's going to divorce me for pulling this off without consulting." I thought that he would be really upset about painting over the oak. Shannon kept on saying "I'm scared!" The thing is, once we started painting so we couldn't stop. There was no turning back. All of us were up until 2:30 am painting. We were getting pretty tired and being really silly. At one point I said "what if someone drives by, sees Adam's car in my driveway at 2:30 am, and realized Dave's away. I can just imagine the rumors at church on Sunday." Adam kept on saying that he wanted to start his own reality show, "Two girls and a guy in a kitchen." LOL that could potentially sound bad, but hey, it was really late, we were beyond tired so anything was funny. We finished painting the walls, and I finished the first coat of paint on the cupboards. The next day I put a second coat of paint on the cupboards and it was looking REALLY good!
Dave came home on April Fools day and gotta say, I've never been so scared to see him. I made sure he called me 5 minutes before he came home, so I could prep him before he came inside. I met him outside and said "Dave, I have a surprise for you. It was Shannon's idea.There's an 80% chance you'll hate it and be mad at me, but I can't undo it, so please be nice."He walked in the door and immediately saw the green paint (I was totally holding my breath). "Ooohhh, nice. I love this green." said Dave. I thought "Pheeeew, he likes the green"! Then he rounded the corner and saw the painted over cupboards (with new brushed nickle knobs) and he said "honey, it looks awesome. I really love it. I can't believe you did all this while I was away. I should leave more often!" Man, I was so happy that he liked it!!! Oh, and I also put together a new bed that I got from Ikea, and decorated for Easter (and went for a 5 km run). Boy was Dave surprised! I totally didn't know I was capable of doing so much in such a short amount of time. I am of course thankful for Shannon and Adam's help painting, and Haley's help putting the bed together.
The next day was Good Friday and we went to our church's breakfast and hike. Then we had a little Easter Egg hunt for Rosie. Saturday was General Conference, and Sunday we went to the in-laws for a turkey dinner.
It's been a BUSY week, that's for sure. Next week will also be pretty busy. I have to touch up some of the paint in the kitchen and do a bunch of laundry.
Now it's time to go to bed because my kids will be up around 7am!

Me Ka Aloha
- Elisabeth

Check out the quilting website www.missouriquiltco.com