Amazing Kids

I imagine that every parent is proud of their children. Parents also think their kids are super duper smart. We are no exception. Let's start with Amaris. She is almost 18 months old so we decided it was time to get rid of the ba-ba. Our strategy was straightforward...let's just talk to her about it and tell her what we wanted to do. Thus, I told her that she was a big girl now and didn't need a ba-ba anymore. She said "Ba-Ba?" I said "I'll just give you a sippy with some milk if you are thirsty". She said "Sippy" (in a happy voice). We proceed with the going-to-bed process without any troubles. She hasn't asked for the ba-ba again. How cool is that. I've got lots more stories about her super-smartness but not enough time or energy to type them. I can only pray it will be that easy when we go to take away her "binkie."

Now for Sheinah. Most everyone who knows us also knows that we are pretty conservative parents. Our kids don't watch very much television and what they do watch is limited to programs that we approve of. The same goes for movies. We check out new movies online before we decide if Sheinah can watch them. We then honestly explain to Sheinah why we don't want her to watch that particular movie. Somehow we managed to not communicate this with her daycare facility...bad parent move. Here comes the really cool part. Sheinah tells us at dinner "Mommy, I have to tell you something and you are not going to like it" (that's a great intro if I ever heard one). She told me that the other day one of her teachers brought in a movie to watch because it was raining outside. Then she says that it was The Princess and the Frog. This movie is on our do-not-watch list for a variety of reasons. After calling her teacher we discover that she didn't watch the movie. About 10 minutes in she told her teacher that her mommy and daddy looked up the movie on the internet and that it had some bad things in it that she was not supposed to watch so they took her next door to play with her sister. How cool is it that she actually listened to us, acted on it, and then told us the truth about the whole thing. It was a proud parent day!

Things Kids Say

Tomorrow morning, the Bumgardners are going to watch their first branding and castration of baby cows. The owner of one of the larger cattle ranches in town holds an annual branding party every spring to brand (and castrate if needed) the spring calves. The Marshalls are coming up to check out the festivities so we've been talking it up with Sheinah for a few weeks. Today Sheinah learned that the baby cows cry alot during this process....geez, can't imagine why :) So tonight at dinner Sheinah was talking to the person sitting in the booth behind us and I asked Sheinah to tell her what she was going to do tomorrow. Her answer: we are going to watch baby cows cry.

Amaris, on the other hand, has a very simple vocabulary. A few months ago she had her first cupcake which she promptly named Kai Kai. We enjoy hearing her say it so much that we've bought/made cupcakes for her several times. We've learned recently that Amaris now calls pretty much anything that is sweet Kai Kai...ice cream, jello, cookies...if it is sweet and yummy it is Kai Kai. Those of you who have not heard her say it cannot quite appreciate the cuteness. We have a video of it somewhere that we'll post if we ever get time.

Boogers

Like most 4 year olds, Sheinah can't help but put her finger in her nose when she feels the urge to clear her nasal passages. Pre-schoolers also enjoy talking about boogers and occasionally eating them. Sheinah is no exception. The other day, we found something hard and crusty on the armrest of the couch that, after close inspection we determined to be dried boogers (gross). Apparently, she would just wipe her fingers on the couch rather than using a tissue. We had a little discussion about that. Today, she asked Travis to sing her a song. Of course, since Travis is a 4 year old at heart, he chose the topic of boogers. For several minutes the two of them went back and forth making up words to the song related to boogers. At one point Sheinah sings something about wiping boogers on the ladder during the night. She sleeps on the lower bunk of a bunk bed with her head by the ladder. Apparently, we need to do a little further discussion about where boogers belong and maybe put a box of tissues by her bed...oh, and one of us should probably go clean the ladder...

Sheinah-isms

Life is incredibly busy, but I just had to take a second to post a few of Sheinah's comments from this week:

1. I have a tooty bottom (said after multiple episodes of flatulence at the dinner table)

2. My eyebulbs are hurting...there is something in my eyebulb. (eyebulb = eyeball)

3. Daddy, you are warm like a blanket (said while snuggling with Travis on the recliner)

Sleepers

Thanks to the help of BabyWize, we've raised some pretty good sleepers. Case in point, they both slept through the powerful flash of Travis' Nikon D90. We couldn't resist getting a picture of their strange sleeping positions. Now you must realize that both of our girls sleep in pitch black darkness. The reason it looks like daylight is because of Travis' bright flash. You should also know that neither girl MOVED...despite multiple pictures taken of each. We think it's cute that they are both sleeping in almost the same position!

Special time with daddy

Whenever Travis is alone with the girls (for even just a few minutes) the camera comes out and strange things happen...we've had my little pony pieces up the nose, running through snow in flip-flops, and on this day, we had underwear on the head. Of course, Amaris will do whatever her big sister does so there were lots of underwear on the head.

Sheinah turns 4

It's hard to believe that it has been four years since Sheinah was born. It's always a little bittersweet for us on her birthday as it brings back memories of the near-death experience for Melissa when Sheinah was born. That said, we had quite an exciting day. This weekend we are celebrating our grand opening at the pharmacy so Sheinah got to spend the morning with her Nama and her sister while we worked. She got calls from all of our immediate family with lots of happy birthday songs sung to her. She even got a call from one of her babysitters, Nicole Skinner, all the way from Wisconsin.

We've been telling her for several months that when she turns four she would have to give up her B (her special blanket that she uses to suck her thumb). We are trying a technique we saw on Super Nanny (yes, it's cheesy but we hope it works). The episode was with a family whose four year old twins had a pacifer in their mouths 24-7. The "Binky Fairy" came and took all the pacifers and left presents in their place. Thus, the "B Fairy" was born. Now, we try our best to be truthful with Sheinah so when she asked who was the B Fairy, we told her it was daddy :) The deal was that she would need to give all of her Bs to the B Fairy and then she could get one present for each B she turned in. We let her pick out the presents at our store. We had planned to do this transaction next weekend after her birthday party, but today, she came to the pharmacy and said she wanted to turn in her Bs for her presents. We patiently explained the consequences of this which she professed to understand.

Fast forward to 8pm tonight when the B Fairy came for the Bs. The short version is that it did not go well. Melissa cried almost as much as Sheinah. Sheinah just kept saying "I just need my B for one more night and then I'll give it back tomorrow." This sounded completely rational to her mommy! Travis, in all his daddy-B-Fairy wisdom, knew that it would only get worse if we gave in. Two hours and many tears, screams, and one potty accident later, she was finally asleep. It was most certainly a birthday to remember!

Peach's Accident

We got a call on Tuesday night, August 18th, from the folks who are boarding our horse saying that Peach had gotten hurt and we better come see her. When we got there, things looked pretty bad. She had long scratches down her back and a big giant hole where her left front leg attaches to her body. Unfortunately, as soon as we got there, a huge hailstorm went through, destroying any evidence of whatever had happened to her. Travis and Dave (the guy who boards her), drove 30 miles to Ogallala to take her to the vet. The vet sewed her right up and said it looked like Peach had impaled herself on a fence post. The next day, Dave and his friend walked the property looking for downed fence or any evidence of what might have happened to Peach. Since he couldn't find any damaged fence, he decided to call the Department of Wildlife to investigate if it could have been a mountain lion attack. It should be noted that Travis had called his cousin Mike in Wyoming (where we got the horse) and emailed him a picture of Peach's injuried the night it happened. Mike's theory matched the vet's - that it was a fence post as mountain lions usually attack from the front at the neck. After a week of investigation, the DOW agreed with Mike's conclusions. Dave spent several more days walking the property and still has been unable to find what might of happened to injure Peach. In any case, Peach chewed on her stitches and they came out so she still has a big gaping hole in her front side. She finished a course of antibiotics and now Dave or Travis just sprays her with some pink stuff (there's a name for it, but I don't know what it is) and the vet says it will eventually heel. In the meantime, she has to stay in a small fenced area so that she won't walk too much on her injured leg. When we went to see her on Friday, all the other horses were visiting with her on the other side of the fence. They seemed kind of sad that she couldn't come out and play. She has a roommate now too...one of the horses was "naughty" (in the words of Dave's 11 year old daughter) and has to stay in the stall.

We have to give Peach all kinds of props from coming through this injury. The pictures of her injury are just too graphic to post but it looked really horrible. Since she has so many scratches on her back that have to be sprayed with the pink stuff, she kind of looks like a painted pony from the circus. Once those stitches popped out, it looked really bad again, but that pink stuff is actually working. I'm guessing she is gonna have one heck of a scar though when it is all said and done.

Sheinah has been a real trooper through the whole adventure. We took her to see Peach that first night because we honestly didn't know if the horse was going to make it. We wanted her to be able to say good-bye to the horse, if needed. Sheinah did really good despite the gruesome hole in her pet. She goes with Travis a few times a week to feed/care for the horse and hasn't balked at the big hole at all. She hasn't even complained that she can't ride the horse. Of course, we haven't got the bill from the vet yet so we are still doing good ourselves (wink, wink).

Tennis Ball Gun Gone Wrong

The Bumgardner boys have never really grown up. Case in point - while we were in Wyoming at Dusty's house, Dusty took all the kids (including the grown-up ones) outside to play with his toy. It was basically a potato gun on steroids. The goal of the gun was to shoot tennis balls really far using hairspray and a flint in the bottom of a PVC pipe. Apparently, he uses this gun all the time to entertain the kids. Enter Travis....

Now those of you who know us well are aware of Travis' various head injuries...all of which involved ice. Somehow, in the process of doing nothing more than observing someone else use the tennis ball gun, the lid to the gun shot off the back, hit the concrete and bounced up, hitting Travis in the eyebrow. It just so happens that Travis doesn't have health insurance. Thus, we had to make the decision about whether or not the cut was deep enough to need a trip to the emergency room for stitches. The group concensus was that superglue and steri-strips would do. The operating team included Melissa, Dusty, and Shannon with assistance from the entire Bumgardner clan. The repair was videotaped by Kerry and I'm sure will show up on some Bumgardner's blog or facebook page. Dusty swears that he and the kids have used this thing forever without any problems...

The best part of the story is when we got home. Remember that we are business owners and Travis is the face of the pharmacy up front. His story was that he mouthed off to Melissa one time too many :)

Welcome to Peach

Sheinah has been asking for a horse since her third birthday. We took her to the Bayfield Apple Festival last October (our annual tradition) at which she rode a pony on a guided pony ride. Right after that she told us that on her next birthday she was going to get a pony. Now we usually don't like to just give her everything she asks for. However, part of the point of living out in the middle of nowhere is so that we can have things like a pony. It just so happened that Travis cousin Dusty had an older horse that could no longer go hunting in the mountains. Dusty offered to give the horse to Sheinah. Thus, we took a trip out to Wyoming to visit with Travis' uncle JimBob and pick up the horse.

The horse's original name is Peaches. When we first asked Sheinah what she would like to name her horse she said "Miss Kim." Kim is her favorite teacher at pre-school. We were thinking that Miss Kim might not enjoy having a horse named after her but we were willing to let her choose. Once she met the horse and we told her the horse's name, Sheinah decided that the horse's name would be Peach. We got scolded if we forgot and called her Peaches :)

Her first ride required Travis to have his hands on her...then she let him let go...then she rode with her cousins. Once we got Peach home, Sheinah actually rode her all by herself! Check out some pictures.

Sedgwick County Fair

The Sedgwick County Fair began today with the annual parade. We found out on Monday that we (Abts Pharmacy and Carolyn's Flowers) needed to be in the parade. The ladies of the store did an amazing job creating a float in just two days. It helps that we have a flower shop well stocked with decorating supplies. Faye, one of our clerks, provided her truck and trailer which everyone (except the pharmacists) proceeded to decorate. It is my personal opinon that we had the best float, but I may a bit biased. The theme for the fair is "Tough enough to wear pink" in support of breast cancer awareness. Thus, the entire float, including the folks on it, wore lots and lots of pink. Donna, another of our clerks, found day-glo hot pink hats for the guys to wear and Judy (one of the former owners) provided Travis with an amazing hot pink shirt. I have three favorite memories from the parade: (1) Travis in the hot pink shirt with the collar turned up to make him look cool (2) Murl wearing his hot pink hat sideways saying "I is the pharmacist" (3) Sheinah talking about caramel poop (in reference to all the horse manure on the road).

Raspberry toots

We try to spend a little one-on-one time with Sheinah in the evenings after we put Amaris to bed. Tonight, we were having a tickle fight. Sheinah and I decided to blow raspberries on Travis' tummy. Sheinah needed me to show her what to do because she didn't quite know how to do it. I showed her and then gave her a turn. As soon as she blew out, she also tooted. We, of course, started laughing and asked her to do it again. Amazingly she did...again, and again, and again. I wonder if there is any need for people who can fart on demand? Anyway, we got a video of it. My favorite part was her trying to show Travis how to do it and Travis's face turning red as he tried unsuccessfully to toot. Apparently, she didn't get her ability in this area from her daddy. Be sure to turn up the volume in order to hear the toots.

First tooth

Amaris finally cut her first tooth today. It seems like she has been teething for months. Of course, she is very grumpy and drooly and can't seem to put enough stuff in her mouth but we are happy that the first tooth is through.

Life is Good

Life in Julesburg has improved dramatically since our last post. Our insurance problems have been mostly resolved, we are actually getting paid from insurance companies now, and we almost know what we are doing in running this business.

The girls are flourishing here. Amaris started crawling last week. Her amazing daycare provider caught it on video with her cell phone for us! After just one week of practice, she's already crawling all over the place...mostly to chase the dog. Travis is convinced that she can say "dog" but what she is really saying is "Doh." We've got some videos of her saying this and the crawling that some day we will find the time to post.

Sheinah graduated from her level 1 swimming class. She passed everything EXCEPT putting her face in the water. She can ride her bike by herself pretty fast (of course, it has training wheels on). We call her our little brownie because she is getting so tan. She talks like a grown up, talks back, and generally gives us a glimpse of the joys the teenager years hold for us in the future. She did amazing with her cousins while we were gone in Orlando. She didn't get weepy or anything until the very last day...such a big girl.

As mentioned above, we left the girls for the first time for three days to attend a conference in Orlando. It was good for us to figure out how to leave our girls and we got so much done with the business. It was a great trip and everyone survived with only a few tears!

That's all for now. We are so blessed to be here in Julesburg and appreciate your continued prayers as we figure out what we are doing.

Official Pharmacy Owners

We closed on the pharmacy yesterday and are now the official owner's of Abts Pharmacy and Gifts. It was actually a bit anticlimactic. We had so many errands to run while we were in Denver that we didn't even celebrate the moment. We did pick up "Nama" (Melissa's mom) from the airport and she entertained Sheinah for the whole ride home which was a blessing.

First day at the pharmacy was very, very bad courtesy of our friends as the insurance companies. Here's what happened, all pharmacies have to register with a place called NCPDP which gives the pharmacy a special number that identifies the pharmacy. We got our number assigned to us a few weeks ago. The application asks when the transfer of ownership of the pharmacy will be completed so that the old number can be "turned off" and the new one "turned on". Pharmacies cannot have two numbers so the switch date is very important. Insurance companies use this number to identify pharmacies for payment. When a pharmacy transfers ownership, the new owners have to renegotiate contracts with every insurance company. We've been working on that for over a month, but the companies all require a bill of sale to complete the transfer. Since we didn't have that until yesterday afternoon, all of our applications are pending.

Now, back to that all important switch date. We didn't understand what the form was asking when it wanted the date of the completion of the transfer so we put in the date of closing. This means they turned off the old number yesterday and turned on ours today. Doesn't seem like a problem until you realize that none of our contracts with the insurance companies are active!! This means we couldn't process any prescriptions (or get paid for them which is kind of an important thing). It took Melissa 3 hours on the phone before she figured out the problem. We got to pay $150 to get the old number turned back on...gotta love the government. Once we figured it all out and switched all the numbers back, all the insurance companies worked...except one called Humana. Melissa spent no less than 2 hours being bounced back and forth between different phone numbers at Humana and still never got a person who could fix the problem.
This probably doesn't sound all that bad still until you factor in the fact that Melissa hasn't filled a prescription in 4 years and had to learn an entirely new computer prescription processing system all while working in an environment that is stuck in 1989.

While Melissa was dealing with pharmacy payment issues, Travis was struggling with a fax machine that wouldn't work and trying to get us a State Sales Tax number so that we could order flowers for the flower shop. The application would take 3 weeks to get processed if we mailed it (they won't accept a fax) but could be processed instantly if we did it in person. The problem...the guy in Fort collins is on vacation for a week so Travis would have had to drive all the way back to Denver (6+ hours round trip). The supplier rep was in Julesburg to meet with Melissa (who hardly spoke to him because she was on the phone with insurance companies) and he volunteered to turn the application in for us. It ended up taking him 2+hours to deal with all the problems with that application. Poor guy was trying to help us and ended up spending his whole day at a government office.

Oh yeah, and every few minutes someone would come in to meet the new owners which neither of us could really enjoy because we were so distracted by all the problems. Did we mention that Melissa never left the pharmacy between 7:45am and 6:30pm...yuck! Luckily, Jackie did an amazing job with the girls. They had a blast with their Nama!!

All in all, it was one heck of a first day for us. A little margaritas has softened our memory of the day a bit but we figured we should chronicle the truth for posterity sake. We appreciate your prayers that our insurance problems will get resolved tomorrow and that we would be able to enjoy our second day much more than the first. All the folks who came in were so incredibly welcoming and Julesburg is a really wonderful place. Stay tuned for more installments of the saga of Julesburg.

Journey to Julesburg

We arrived in Julesburg, CO on last Saturday evening after an eventful journey. We thought that one week would be long enough to pack and get settled and even have like a little vacation. Boy were we wrong.

Let's start from the beginning (told from Melissa's perspective). We had intended to have the trailer packed up by the end of the day last Thursday so we could clean the house on Friday and head out in the late afternoon. The reality...on Friday morning we were still packing. We had also intended to leave our mini-van to be sold in Duluth. The pharmacy purchase includes a mini-van that is used for deliveries and we really wanted to travel together in one car. By 1pm, we had completely filled both the trailer and the truck and still had our suitcases and other small things to load. We decided to go ahead and pack the mini-van for me to drive. We had to pick up the girls from their last day at daycare by 5pm so at 4:30pm I drove off while Travis loaded up the last few things.

We didn't even leave Duluth until sometime after 6pm. Now, we stayed up late and got up early every day that week so we were pretty exhausted. Now, I (who am a big sleeper and don't do well driving at night) knew that we would need to drive as far as we could while the girls were sleeping so I decided to use her pharmaceutical knowledge for assistance. That's right, I, in all my brilliance thought it would be good to take some caffeine pills. Those of you who know me know that I DO NOT drink caffeine...pretty much ever. Now I actually used to teach a lecture on insomnia and drowsiness. You would think that I would remember how much caffeine is in a regular beverage. I will blame my miscalculation on my extreme exhaustion. I was thinking that one cup of coffee had between 200 and 300mg of caffeine (in reality, it's about half that) Each caffeine tablet has 200mg. A standard dose is two tablets. I took two tablets at like 7pm. Thus, I had the equivalent of about 3 or 4 cups of coffee...in a person who is caffeine naive. Needless to say, I was wired, my heart was racing, and my hands were shaking; but I was totally awake. We drove until about midnight and found a hotel. No matter how hard I tried, I COULD NOT get to sleep. The last time I looked at the clock was 3am. The girls woke us up at 6am. NOT good.

We hit the road at 8am and pulled into Julesburg at 7pm Mountain time (12 hours later). We encountered bad weather, at least a hundred miles of road construction, stops for the dog to pee and the baby to eat, and one nervous breakdown on my part when grooved pavement made sounds that I thought meant something was wrong with the van. Travis was able to navigate traffic in Omaha while feeding the baby and talking to me on the walkie-talkie...amazingly talented!

When we arrived, Travis' folks were here along with the current owner's of the pharmacy and a few other people. I honestly don't remember much due to extreme exhaustion. I do know that the people who we are renting our house from were kind enough to put milk, eggs, and bread in the fridge for us because the grocery store closes at 7pm. They got half the trailer unloaded to get to the beds so we could put the girls and me to sleep. Unbelievablely, I couldn't sleep...laid there for three hours before Travis came to bed and I finally went to sleep.

We've spent the whole week getting settled and we are still not done unpacking. We've got inventory at the store tomorrow which will be all kinds of fun. David and Shannon and the kids are coming up to watch the girls while we are at the store. D-Day is Monday when we will sign on the dotted line to become the official owner's of Abts Pharmacy and Gifts.

Stay tuned for the next installment in the saga.

God and Money

Tonight on the way to church, Sheinah initiated a conversation about money that turned into a conversation about God. The conversation is recapped below as it was remembered to have transpired between Melissa and Sheinah. I am pretty sure that the conversation started because we gave her some spare change to put in the offering at kids church.

Sheinah: Mom, where does money come from?
Daddy and I get money from working.
Sheinah: How?
Well, we get hired by someone to do a certain job and then they pay us money for doing that job. Sheinah: And then you use that money to buy stuff for kids?
Sometimes, but we were thinking that you are getting old enough to earn your money.
Sheinah: What do you mean?
Well, we would give you a job to do and then give you money for doing the job.
Sheinah: I could help you do pharmacy jobs!
Yes, you could help at the pharmacy.
Sheinah: What do we do with our money?
Daddy and I spend it in three ways.
Sheinah: wait I know, we use money to buy stuff.....what are the other things we do mommy?
We use it to buy stuff we need. We save up money for bigger stuff like we want to buy a new car so we are saving up money for that and then we give money to God like how you give offering at church.
Sheinah: We need big stuff like a new house and a new car and a new pet.
What kind of pet do we need.
Sheinah: A pony...so do we throw the money up in the air (to get it to God)?
No, but that would be a good idea. We get the money to God by giving it to church. We also give money to people in other places who don't know about God yet. (Travis steps in), we give money to a little boy in Africa who is poor and his parents don't have a job.
Sheinah: His parents should get a job
Yes, so we give money to help them have a job, and food, and the little boy gets to go to school and learn about Jesus.
Sheinah: My school doesn't teach anyone about Jesus or God.
No, they don't, we go to church to learn about Jesus.
Sheinah: We like to pray for people who are sick or sad or at the hospital or if they got hurt or if they got eaten or if they have a cavity in their teeth.
If they got eaten?
Sheinah: Eaten is when an animal has big teeth and then it bites you

And then we arrived at church. How's that for a lesson about money and God.

Abts Pharmacy and Gifts

It has been 2 months since our last post but we have a good excuse! As most of you know, we are moving back to Colorado. That in and of itself is likely a good reason to be too busy to post to our blog. However, the real reason we haven't posted anything is that we are purchasing an existing pharmacy in Julesburg, CO which is turning out to be more work than anything we've ever imagined.

When we tell people we are buying a pharmacy we usually get a jaw-dropping exclamation of some sort followed by a request for the story that led us to this new adventure. Thus, we've decided to post the saga here on the blog (which gets automatically uploaded to facebook) to save us from repeating ourselves hundreds of times. We've already told the story about a dozen times so this version here should be pretty accurate. It will, however, be very long.

Told from Melissa's perspective:
When we decided a year ago to move back to Colorado to be closer to family (and because we were sick of the MN cold weather), the assumption was always that I would find a teaching position at my alma mater: the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy. When I learned that Regis was opening a School of Pharmacy as well, I was excited to have the potential for more options. As the time to actually look for a job neared, we both realized that we just were not looking forward to living in Denver. We have grown accustomed to life in a smaller town. We were most definitely NOT eagerly anticipating sitting in traffic, having a long commute, living close to neighbors...the list goes on...but I really didn't want to go back to working for a big chain pharmacy and there aren't that many clinical pharmacist jobs outside of the hospital setting to choose from.

Now Travis is notorious for his ability to function normally (well, normal for Travis anyway), on relatively little sleep. He often puts me to bed and then gets up after I fall asleep and surfs the net. One night back in February he was doing just that when he got the idea to look for pharmacies for sale in Colorado. Those of you who know Travis should not be surprised by this idea as he is always thinking outside the box and coming up with all manner of crazy schemes. He discovered four pharmacies for sale in Colorado: one in a mountain town (too expensive to live there), one in a dying mining town (no explanation needed), one in southern Colorado (too far away and he is not a big fan of southern Colorado), and one out in the plains. Without talking to me about it, he filled out a brief form and signed a non-disclosure agreement to get more information on the pharmacy.

Fast-forward a day or two: I am very, very sick...sick enough to miss an entire week of work...when Travis decides to share his brilliant idea with me. He waits until I finish vomiting (so nice of him) and then says something along the lines of "What do you think about buying a pharmacy?" For all you pharmacy folks out there, you will understand why my immediate response was an emphatic NO. In fact, every time he opened his mouth to say anything, I just said NO. He graciously left me alone...for a few hours...before he tried again...and again...and again to talk to me about this idea. I think I finally gave in and agreed to at least see the information solely to get him to stop bugging me.

Fast-forward one week: I am convinced by Travis' irrepressible enthusiasm and optimism that we can actually own a pharmacy. I forget everything I've ever heard about independent pharmacy ownership: long hours, no vacations, you live and breath at the store. Instead, I embrace the dream of raising our girls in a small town, being able to leave doors unlocked, and "changing our family tree" (in the words of Dave Ramsey) through the financial benefits of owning this fiscally stable business. I imagine being able to take care of my patients in whatever way I think is best. I start talking to my trusted confidants. Everyone I tell thinks that this would be a perfect fit for both me and my family. No one tells me I am crazy. Maybe this could actually work.

Fast-forward one month (March 2009): We run into all kinds of trouble trying to find financing in the current economy. It doesn't help that our new president has changed the banking rules with regards to how much banks can loan on what they call "blue sky" under a small business loan. Basically, when you buy a pharmacy you are buying very little real property. Instead, you are trusting that the customers will continue to come there...hence the "blue sky." The new banking rules would make it such that we had to come up with a significant chunk of change on our own. We head out to Colorado so I can interview at Regis because we aren't sure if this whole pharmacy thing is going to work. We go to Julesburg to check out the pharmacy and meet the owners. We fall in love with the town, the store, everything. Yep, we definitely want to do this, but we are having a heck of a time finding a way to buy the place.

Enter my amazing boss, Randy Seifert. He knows someone in everyone area of pharmacy, including the folks who help pharmacists buy pharmacies. He connects me with a consulting company that eventually gets us a loan (but that whole process takes two months). The consultant has us fill out forms (the first of many) and says he'll get back to us in a day or two to let us know if we are pre-approved. He calls us in an hour saying we would be crazy NOT to buy the place and he we are approved! Yes, it is THAT good of a store (I think that is bad English but you get the point).

Fast forward two months (May 2009): We have a trip to Mexico planned for over a year that gets cancelled thanks to H1N1 flu. No worries, we just book ourselves some tickets to Colorado for a 12 day trip. We hang out in Breckenridge for awhile waiting for one tiny piece of paper that will allow us to go to Julesburg and meet everyone at the store. The paper finally comes and we are off. Murl, the owner, finally tells his staff that he is selling the pharmacy (it had been a secret the whole time). We arrive with the girls knowing that our kids will pave the way! Sure enough, they are a hit and we are instant celebrities! By the end of day one, we've looked at a bunch of houses, met the county commissioner, and got the girls registered at school. By day two, the local paper has contacted Murl for a story and we found a place to rent. There is a whole nother story about the rental house, but we'll save that for another post. We are actually going to do this!!

Fast forward to today: So there is a RIDICULOUS amount of paperwork involved with purchasing a pharmacy. We basically spend every night filling out forms and then play phone tag with various folks during the day. We have barely started packing and we are set to leave on June 19th...just 10 days! We are so excited to start this new adventure and a bit nervous about small town life as business owners. We appreciate your prayers during this busy time or just happy thoughts if you're not the praying type. We will most definitely miss our Vineyard family, the College of Pharmacy and the beauty of Lake Superior. We will most definitely NOT miss sub-zero temperatures and forty degree weather on June 8th!

I almost forgot to give the scoop on the town! It is the county seat so it actually has quite a bit of stuff: county courthouse, library, elementary/jr.high/high school, nursing home, assisted living facility, and critical access hospital with a helipad. There are somewhere between 1247 and 1500 people in the town depending on which website you look at. The website for the town is: http://www.townofjulesburg.com/.

Thanks for reading this first installation of the Abts Pharmacy saga.

What happens when daddy is home with the girls...

1. Daddy takes lots of pictures.

2. Sheinah and Amaris get some quality one-on-one time.

3. Sheinah puts puzzles together all by herself

4. Toys end up in the nose?? (that's a hat for her my little pony toy)

Happy legs

When Amaris gets excited...or bored...or pretty much any time of the day...she kicks both legs up and down. Sometimes she kicks so hard that you can hear her banging the floor from several rooms away. We caught it on video to share.