A Sigh of Relief

The open house is over!  What a day that was!  And what a relief now that it's over.  As we were cleaning up, Randy (my very amazing husband but also very oblivious to many of the things I do but that's ok because I'm not perfect either) said, "Mel, thanks for all the work you did for the open house.  You really did a lot!"  Well, yes I did do a lot.  I'm just glad he noticed so I don't feel like punching him in the face.  Ha! I told Randy that the sense of relief/accomplishment will be probably feel similar to how we will feel the day after one of our kids gets married.  After weeks of preparations to make everything just right, the worry if people will come, the excitement of celebrating a good thing, etc.  Luckily we have a while before any wedding planning will be happening!
I am known for doing everything at the last possible second but I was determined to not let things get that way for the open house and miraculously the only last-minute things were stuff Randy had to do so he was the one scrambling, not me.  I had everything ordered and planned a couple weeks in advance which is very unlike me.  
We sent out invitations to dental offices far and wide, delivered treats with the invitations to the nearby offices, and sent reminder emails to help boost attendance.  I ordered gifts to give away as raffle prizes, wrapped them up cute with bows (very unlike me), ordered catering after doing lots of online searching and asking all my dental friends for advice, gathered tables, chairs, and tablecloths from various friends, and worked out the logistical nightmare of being completely unavailable for my kids that day.   The ride coordinating and meal prep for the boys was quite the feat!  After everything was over I still remembered to pick up Marcus from lacrosse practice. 

We had a great turnout, everyone loved our office and enjoyed spinning the wheel to see what prize they won.  The prizes were probably the hardest part as I had to come up with a whole bunch of different items that weren't too expensive but also not total junk.  We gave out giant cookies, Krispy Kreme donuts, T-shirts with our logo on them, Sea Hawks gear (I bought on clearance months ago or that would've broken the bank), Sonicare toothbrushes, Starbucks and Amazon gift cards, and a few random gifts, like an inflatable couch and a mermaid tail blanket, just to keep things funny.

Cafe Rio chicken wraps along with my semi-homemade guacamole were a huge hit. 

the lemon bars were divine and everyone commented on the cute sugar cookies (not made by me but one of Randy's happy patients sent them as a gift and they were too cute not to share)

My friend lent me these buckets and when she dropped them off she had them filled with drinks for us.  So thoughtful!  I got to return most of the drinks we had purchased which felt so good actually putting money back on the credit card for a change.

Here's our staff, minus the girl on the left who is a good friend of mine who I hired for the day to help us out.  I designed the T-shirts and also bought some for my boys to wear.  Landon wears his all the time and always gets comments.

These cookies turned out to be such a labor of love.  I got it in my head that I wanted to give them out and after calling several bakeries I realized it would cost a small fortune so I made them myself.  Keep in mind that I bake sugar cookies about once a year and am no cookie artist (yes, there is such a thing).  I got some tips and recipes from my sister-in-law who is a real cookie artist and went for it.  I put the smiley faces on using a ziploc bag but I think the reason they look like a kid did them was because I'm an amateur.  And the tooth has those pink lines because it's a root canal tooth.  Dental people get the joke. 

 Barb came over one night and stayed until midnight helping me roll out, cut, and frost cookies.  She's the greatest!

I made these in advance and then froze them but the black frosting bled a little.  I let my boys eat the rejects but for the most part decided people would appreciate a delicious homemade cookie that was imperfectly frosted and I was right!  I had lots of people ask for the recipe.  Of course it's one of Mel's Lemon zest always makes things tasty!

I ordered a ton of umbrellas and had our logo put on them.  Then I came up with this tag to put on them, spent hours on it, and realized they were better without the tag.  I'm excited to see these umbrellas popping up around town and at soccer games in the next little while.

These are 3 bottles of Cafe Rio salad dressing sitting in my fridge.  The nectar of the gods.  The day after the open house, I invited a bunch of friends over for lunch to eat all the leftovers and to celebrate the end of the open house.  It was lovely!