The Sweet Life
It has almost been one whole YEAR since we opened shop in downtown Clarksburg! What a wild adventure it has been! Allow me to share some highlights:
February 12th, 2015-ONE day before opening-ONE day before we had 1,000 orders to fulfill for Valentine's Day-and our oven wouldn't work and our mixer broke! Talk about problem solving on the fly. We managed to run to Lowes for a new oven-RIGHT before theyclosed (shout out to the ladies in the appliance center for helping us so quickly)- Thankfully we had a small back up mixer at the house. I'm pretty sure we did not sleep...Despite many setbacks right before opening, Valentine's 2015 was amazing! The support on that day from all of our MLC friends and family was more than we ever imagined.
May 2015- Bridgeport Farmers Market regular season starts back up EVERY Sunday! This means NO days off for us-ever. BUT, we LOVE it. We LOVE being apart of the market and doing it together-and with you all. Every week we look forward to seeing you. Yes, we may not know your name...but we do know your dogs name, your favorite flowers, that you weren't at the market the week before. We pay attention, we listen, we enjoy your stories and learning about YOU. Without the market and all of our market friends, we would not be in exsistence. Thank you for taking a chance on us and giving us that push to follow a dream.
Summer 2015- On top of keeping up with the shop, special orders and the market, summertime was FILLED with weddings. We are always honored to be apart of anyone's special day-but being apart of a wedding day is exciting. We want the day to be PERFECT-and we get to help make it that way. Yes, we've had a few panic attacks-like the time we drove to Snowshoe and it was nothing but hills and curves and we held our breath when we opened the cooler because we were afraid to see toppled cupcakes....delivery is scary!
August 2015- We attended the Blackberry Festival for the 2nd year. We were thrilled to see so many people come back to us from the previous year! We introduced our homemade blackberry ice cream here (YUMM!) We sold out of that quickly-this year we will be making soooo much more. Speaking of ice cream-Frankie gets all the credit for that! And speaking of Frankie-August was when he quit his full-time job to come work in the shop alongside me...all day everyday. This was his idea and so far he is still loving it. MLC is what we both do full-time. It's our livelihood.
Fall 2015- Fall is kind of a blur. The market ended in October, Thanksgiving came and went...then it was Christmas. ANNNNND...we finally purchased a commercial oven! We were baking out of a regular home oven. We could bake about 12 dozen cupcakes in an hour. (We would take around 30 dozen cupcakes to the farmers market-just for reference.) NOW, we can bake up to 60 dozen cupcakes in an hour. The oven has saved us so much time!
End of 2015-We ended the year/started the new year with another big adventure: A dessert trailer! We can't wait to take MLC mobile. We hope to spread the sweetness farther than Harrison County.
MLC has grown from a farmers market table, to a storefront to a dessert trailer. We could not be where we are without the support of all of our MLC friends. We can never thank you all enough for giving us that push and encouragement to do something that we love. I always wanted to own a business...I never thought it'd be a bakery--but it's so fitting for us. It's what we love doing, together. We hope you enjoy MLC as much as we do.
*Special thanks to our kids who have spent countless nights, early mornings and every weekend in the shop. They do so without complaining. They encourage us and are always trying to think of new flavors and new products to sell. Thanks to my mom who works all week and then comes and helps us in the shop and with the kids. Thanks to our other parents who support us and never discourage us. MLC isn't just 2 people-it's a whole group of people...a community of people. We are looking forward to 2016!
