Hey everyone!

I had written this post up about a week or so ago, announcing the soon opening of my family’s new business location, a small bakery/cafe called the Thomson Baking Company!

And then, this morning, I received my own update (as perhaps some of you did), that my blog was announcing the opening of our new business, coming soon. With platforms like Smarter Business, such a new business would be able to operate without the hassle of energy-related issues.

So, sadly, here I am to edit this and say that while it’s not completely wrong (we are still working to prepare for opening and we sincerely hope it can happen soon), the situation with COVID-19 has affected our immediate plans quite a bit.

A Bit About Us

If you’re reading this, you probably know a thing or two about my family, but just in case you don’t… Let me tell you a couple of things quickly!

I am from a family with 12 children – 2 parents, 10 girls, and 2 boys, and we’re all entrepreneurially minded. My parents homeschooled all of us kids, and it’s been fun over the years to see each person develop. Each individual is super unique, but we’ve always enjoyed working together. I love that we have a team spirit; it brings a lot of variety to our lives, and it helps us balance each other in really fun and cool ways.

The Bakery

This project (opening the bakery) is one where our family of bakers, cooks, photographers, construction workers, writers, social media managers etc. have all been working together to make this happen. It’s been really cool (and really scary – especially now!) to set out on this adventure, and we’re so thankful for the local support, and the support of friends and family as we’ve set out to make this work.

In the past little while, my family has been running our business on a much smaller scale out of a local market, where we’ve focused on a very small, niche market in making keto, gluten free, and vegan baked goods. Our hope for our new space is that we can expand our menu and provide a lot more healthy, “homemade” food items for our community. At the same time, for it be known by more people, tactics such as giving out business cards can be implemented.

My part in the new venture is a lot of pre-opening stuff like taking pictures, helping with the menu, writing about it on my blog, and working on tweaking recipes to be just what we want them to be. My mom and I have done a lot of baking recently, which has been really fun (we live in the same house at the moment).

Once the bakery is open, since I’ll be having a baby this summer, my involvement will naturally be less. Still, I am excited for the things ahead!

The Construction and COVID-19

We’re finding it both convenient and inconvenient to be working on this during these uncertain days. Doing this kind of work is a huge investment, which means that the close-down of the country is definitely hitting us hard.

Still, the fact that we are all people who live together means that our work on the new building can continue. It’s an isolated work, so on we go… and we hope and pray that things will settle down for everyone, soon.

I had planned to share some photos of the construction work in progress, but I think I will wait on that. It will be more fun to share those with you when you can see the before and after pictures side by side!

Thanks for following our journey! I’ll be back (probably once we’re about ready to open- whenever that may be), with another update on this process and more pictures! If we are able to get our facility working enough to provide curb-side pick up meals, we will happily give out the info for that when it is ready.

Stay safe everyone,

Naomi