Our Grand Opening

Most of you know that Brent has wanted to own his own pharmacy since he was in pharmacy school. He has never really wanted to work for a retail pharmacy as he prefers the environment of an independently owned pharmacy. He has worked for an independent pharmacy since he graduated 3 years ago and has had the itch to buy or start his own for some time now. He and his boss decided to go into business together and start a new pharmacy of their own. There are many small towns around here that don't have an independent pharmacy so they have to rely on the ever busy Wal-Mart to get their prescriptions filled. Brent and his partner decided on the town of Hereford to put their pharmacy in. As soon as they got the ball rolling, everything fell into place very quickly. They found the perfect location but the office needed some serious renovation. Let the demolition begin! Brent is quite the handy man so he did a lot of the reconstruction work himself. (He laid tile for the first time and did a great job.) So within about 5 months of the decision to start a pharmacy, a location was picked out, demolition started, reconstruction done, insurance contracts arranged, inventory ordered and shelved, and a handsome pharmacist willing to pack up his family and move to a town where there are more cows than people. Here are some before and after pictures of the pharmacy. I am very proud of Brent; I think he put together a really nice store.

(The previous business was a beauty salon so there were several cubicles and lots of faux painting.)
(These are the shelves that took up our whole garage for a couple of months.)

(This is the little Smart Car that we bought to use as a delivery car. We took a picture of it next to my Tahoe to compare the size. It's so cute and tiny and I laugh every time I see it because it's always smaller than I remember. Drew calls it daddy's funny car. We have to feed the hamsters everyday that turn the engine to make sure Brent can make it to work and back. The store logo is now on the sides but for some reason I don't have a picture of that.)

Today was the Grand Opening of our pharmacy and I think it went very well. The Chamber of Commerce came out for a ceremonial ribbon cutting and an official welcome to the community. Afterwards, we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and served a free lunch to promote the Grand Opening of Hereford Healthmart Pharmacy. We optimistically planned for about 200 people and I was worried that we would be eating leftover hamburgers and hot dogs for weeks. You just never know how many people will show up to your shin dig so we were hoping for a decent turn out. And decent it was--we ran out of hamburgers by 12:30 and had to go buy 3 more boxes of patties to accomodate the crowd. They estimated about 300 people came out which was a great turn out for us in such a small community in the middle of the workday during the work week. I was very pleased and I think Brent feels good about this new endeavor. The people of Hereford have been very welcoming and encouraging. During the Grand Opening, one of the local radio stations came out to broadcast live from our store. The dj interviewed everybody including me and Drew so we got to make our radio debut today as a family and I hope we didn't sound too ridiculous. Here are a few pictures of today's events.

(Brent receiving his official welcome from the Chamber of Commerce.)
(Brent is holding the gigantic cartoon scissors used to cut the ceremony ribbon in front of the funny car.)
(Drew and Avery trying to stay out of trouble. Drew loves to hold her hand and take care of her.)

(Here is Brent doing his radio interview.)
(Drew's turn. He got on and said "My name is Drew. D-R-E-W." The guy asked him if he was going to have a hot dog for lunch and Drew said "No, I'm having a steak." I don't know where that came from.)
(Yes, even I did an interview. Avery didn't last very long on my lap and I'm sure the listeners heard her grunting to get down.)

So what does all this mean? We are now self employed and will be moving to the beef capital of the world as soon as we sell our house. It's a little scary to just hang your sign out and hope people come in but we are looking forward to this new chapter in our life and hope that the pharmacy is successful. Brent has put a lot into it and I know his hard work will pay off. Hereford, here we come!