Our Great City

Anyone who has met Steve and Cheryl Anderson will tell you that they are about as opposite as they come. Cheryl, who was featured in 2003 on the Oprah Winfrey show as one of the funniest moms in America and who’s personal URL is www.ComedyMom.com, and Steve, a hard charging entrepreneur that just concluded the year as President of the Ft. Worth Chapter of the Young President’s Organization. Friends say that they are like the modern day “Lucille Ball and Ricky Ricardo.”

How these two got together is a bit like the old “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup” commercials: “You got chocolate in my peanut butter. No you got peanut butter in my chocolate. Yummmmmm!” What might seem like an odd mixture at the outside turns out to be a delicious combination.

Steve and Cheryl met in San Antonio while Cheryl was attending UTSA. Steve had moved to south Texas to get involved with a small start up business after graduating from the University of Utah with Honors in just two and a half years of total class time. They met in church, which is what most people usually say when they meet in a bar! But they actually did. It was a young single adult congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and it was Cheryl’s first week there. Steve claims that the moment he met Cheryl, his mind was made up. “I’ve got to have me some of that.”

The “that” he refers to is Cheryl’s boundless enthusiasm, humor, charm, and energy. “When we were dating, all of my friends said that being around Cheryl was like being on ‘Happy Days’ all the time,” Steve says.

The two married about eighteen months later in 1993 and settled in the Texas Hill Country near Kerrville where Steve had become the CEO of the company he helped start.

Within the next seven years, the company had grown to the point that it was clear that it needed a new home in a larger city. “We looked at different cities all over the country and knew that the Dallas area was to be our home,” Cheryl says. “I’m a Texas girl through and through raised in El Paso to the west and Lufkin on the east, there seemed like no better place than Dallas, right in the middle!” she adds. In 2000 when the family moved from the Hill Country, Steve and Cheryl had four daughters: Ashlin, Abby, and Erin and Emily – identical twins.

As part of the businesses that Steve has founded and run over the last twenty years, he speaks all over the world. He is the founder of the Total Patient Service Institute (http://www.totalpatientservice.com) which specializes in implementing the highest level of patient service, communication and management skills in dental practices.

Over the last twenty years he has spoken at every major dental meeting in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom, conducted hundreds of seminars, worked with thousands of dental practices to increase their productivity through patient communication, written over 100 articles for dental industry publications, authored 5 books, and produced dozens of audio and video learning programs. While not a dentist himself, dentists look to him and his organizations for some of the best practice management systems and advice available.

In 1995, he co-founded the Crown Council, (www.CrownCouncil.com) an international association of leading dentists and dental teams. Through the Crown Council, he and Cheryl co-founded the Smiles for Life Foundation, (www.SmilesForLife.org) which has raised over $27 million dollars in the last 12 years for children’s charities worldwide. A creative partnership with country music artist Garth Brooks and his foundation TeamMates for Kids lead to even larger donations well in excess of 60 million dollars over the last ten years. Steve was recently named the “Dental Businessman of the Year” by Excellence in Dentistry.

They are also the co-founders of the LEAP Foundation, (www.LEAPfoundation.com) which provides week-long success seminars for high school and college students helping them get a 7 year “leap” ahead in their career and their life which they donate their time to one week out of every year raising up to $300,000.00 in scholarship money for underprivileged children to be able to attend as well as the affluent.

All of these professional accomplishments notwithstanding, the Andersons are best known for their six daughters. “That qualified me to be a ‘D.O.D.O.’’ Steve says. (Dad of Daughters Only.) And it was to have remained that way until April 22nd of this year.

A phone call on that day lead to the addition of the seventh Anderson child. This time a boy! A distant relative was not able to keep and raise their newborn child and asked Steve and Cheryl if they would adopt him. They were thrilled to do so for many reasons, the first of which was to “pay it forward” and give the gift of adoption to someone else, just like it had been given to Cheryl in her teenage years.

Owen became an official Anderson in July of this year. Only 5 months old, he is the delight of his older sisters.

Today Ashlin is a sophomore at Carroll High School and swims on the varsity swim team. Abby is in the 8th grade at Carroll Middle School and dives for GC Divers local diving club. Erin and Emily are both sixth graders at Durham Intermediate School and love reading and being part of the school orchestra. Olivia started kindergarten at Johnson Elementary School this year. All the girls are pianists and music enthusiasts with other instruments as well. Avery and Owen are Mom’s buddies at home.

“Ours has been an amazing ride together” says Cheryl. While the old saying goes that opposites attract, Steve and Cheryl would say that opposites compliment each other. It is their deep faith; however, that has been the glue to their marriage and their family. “When we were married by Steve’s father, a lay minister in the LDS Church, he made it very clear to us that we were not only making a promise to each other, but to God as well. It is a three way promise and one of the most sacred and important commitments in life.”

As a family, they work to do meaningful things together beyond their favorite family pastime: water skiing and wake boarding. Each year they lead a group of dentists from around the country on a dental humanitarian expedition to some of the most remote villages in the Dominican Republic. Some of the girls always go along to work and to serve. It is one of the most meaningful things they do that keeps them grounded in “reality” and maintaining a sense of gratitude.

So when you see the Anderson's out at one of their many family activities in Southlake, say Hi to our Family of the Month and tell them you heard about them on OurGreatCity.com!

There is an old toast, "May your friends be like family and your family be like friends."

Before the Weisgarber’s moved to Southlake 11 years ago, they could never imagine how much family they would come to have. When they arrived in Southlake from New Jersey during the summer of 1999, Angela was pregnant with their youngest child, Maggie. They were warmly welcomed by the Texas heat – and by a wonderful group of neighbors. Over the following weeks, months and years they have met many people who were destined to be their friends for life. They celebrate most holidays together and have established their own traditions. Almost all of them have gone through 40th birthdays together (OK, some 50's too!), and they drag each other to various charity events and squeeze in couple happy hours together! Then, if you add in the friends the kids have introduced them to through school and their extra activities you could say the Weisgarber’s cup runs over!

Since James, Francia and Reda Arrigan moved last year to Southlake, there has been one burning question among those meeting the new family from Los Angeles, California. Why did you move to Southlake, Texas? Well to make the story short, the answer is very simple: location, location, location.

The reason the Busse name often gets mis-pronounced, is because Janis (a boy), Olaf and Ute are from Germany.

Three years ago they took the trip across the Atlantic and moved for the second time from Germany to the United States and now call Southlake their very beloved home.

In 1995, Julie Petroski and Bruce Morrice met in San Francisco after talking on the phone for 6 months — they were both friends of an art director from Los Angeles. Julie was a copywriter in Northern California; Bruce was a pharmaceutical rep in Toronto. Neither of them intended to be in a long distance relationship that spanned North America, but after many months, too many plane tickets, some astronomical phone bills, they decided to get married. And because Bruce’s career was more established, they decided that Toronto would be their home so Julie moved to Canada. After being married 6 months, they got an English bulldog puppy and named her Daisy.

Fast forward to 2007. Julie was now a group creative director at Canada’s largest advertising agency when her former boss Kimberley Walsh called from Texas with a question: Would she be interested in considering a move back to the U.S.? Julie had never been to Texas, but Bruce had been to Dallas a couple of times for work. They booked a flight, landed at DFW airport and spent a fantastic weekend in Southlake with Kimberley and her family. They loved Southlake Town Square and were frankly amazed by the real estate.

Before she knew it, Julie accepted a position at an Irving-based agency and began the process to get Bruce a Green Card. She moved down at the end of February 2007, living in her boss’ guest house as she tried to get everything organized for the cross-border move. She looked for houses all over the metroplex, but each time kept coming back to Southlake. She liked the close proximity to people she knew, to her office, and to DFW airport. She liked having everything she needed nearby — groceries, great shopping, restaurants and doctors and dentists. So she looked for a house in Southlake — and finally got Daisy a big yard. Julie moved into their house in May 2007.

You may wonder what was happening with Bruce and Daisy. Well, the Green Card process took much longer than expected so Bruce was a frequent weekend visitor to Southlake while he maintained residency in Canada. Poor Bruce had to move in with his parents after their Toronto house was sold. Daisy loved it, but it added over an hour to each way of Bruce’s commute. It was a hard time for the entire family. By December 2007, Bruce and Julie decided that 10 year old Daisy needed to move to Texas so they drove her down. She wasn’t too sure she wanted to leave the cushy life she was having with her “grandparents” but she enjoyed staying in hotels during the drive down and was shocked to see her big yard and all the room she had to play ball. She had a lovely first Christmas in her new house.

In February 2008, Bruce finally got his Green Card and he was able to move to Texas and begin looking for work. As he was building his business network, he became Julie’s “manny” taking care of the house, the yard, all of the chores and doing renovations. He installed hardwood and tile, painted, planted and built cabinets to keep himself busy. He made friends with all of the neighbors. And he began to get involved with life in Southlake, suggesting that he and Julie “keep Southlake Beautiful” by adopting a street -- part of Continental between Byron Nelson and Carroll (look for their sign). He decided to leave the pharmaceutical business and began working as a project manager for a supply chain service company. Life was good and Bruce and Julie got to know the area better. Julie started getting involved with the Dallas area alumnae chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi as well as the Dallas Ad League. Bruce and Daisy got to know the folks at the Three Dog Bakery very well. Daisy even learned to love getting into the pool during the hot summer.

2009 was a year of big changes for Bruce and Julie. In August, they said goodbye to their beloved Daisy. But the house was too quiet to be dog free for long. After Julie and Bruce took a much needed vacation, they decided to rescue a dog. And because they were looking for a dog who could keep up with a more active lifestyle and be a good reason to get a lot of exercise, they decided on a chocolate lab. They got Godiva in mid-September and she kept them busy with potty training, learning how to walk on a leash, and classes at Petsmart. A DNA test showed that Godiva wasn’t all lab — despite her curly coat, she wasn’t a Chessie, she was a very active lab-bull terrier-chow-English setter!

On January 29, 2010, Julie, Bruce and Godiva had another big change. Through the Three Dog Bakery, Bruce heard that there was a black lab that needed a home — he had been found in a parking lot. He was 15 pounds underweight with a severe urinary tract infection. He was completely trained and knew how to sit, stay, shake and walk well on a leash. It was love at first sight for Godiva and even though they weren’t sure about the timing, Bruce and Julie got the black lab to the vet and nursed him back to health. They named him Guinness and he’s well on his way to getting back to the weight the vet wants him to be. Guinness is doing his part to help train Godiva to be a great adult dog just like him.

If you look around Southlake, you’ll find the Mortroskis (as the family has been called by their friends) walking in the early morning and before dinner usually in the Timarron subdivision. On the weekends you may see them at Southlake Town Square getting coffee and at the Three Dog Bakery getting treats for Guinness and Godiva. Having the dogs has given them the opportunity to really enjoy the great outdoors in Southlake — and they are all looking forward to making new friends at the dog park.