Business

MOSES LAKE — Lois and Larry Anderson don't see their business as another Mom and Pop store.

"Mostly a Grandma and Grandpa store," Lois Anderson said with a smile.

The Andersons opened their new business, The Final Touch, a gift store and bakery combination, this week at 210 E. Third Ave.

"We decided we had to make a choice — whether to sit in front of the TV set and rot away or open a business and work ourselves to death," Larry Anderson said.

The Andersons like to travel, Lois said, and hope to purchase items for the gift business in their travels.

Right now, only the two of them are working in the store, but Lois said there are plans to bring someone in for when they are out traveling.

Larry plans to make old-fashioned candies and a few fresh cookies and desserts.

Lois included a princess room for little girls to have lemonade parties.

"I love children, and I can see that would be a lot of fun, for someone to come with their grandma, mom or aunt, and have a little lemonade party," she said.

Lois hopes to see her business become a service to the community.

"I've always wanted to be more involved in the town, in the city part of it," she said. "I live 10 miles out of town and (am) very busy on the farm and in my church."

The couple set up chairs in the front of their location, the better to allow them to get more closely acquainted with their customers.

"We'd like to get to know more people in the area," Lois said. "We're here to serve."

"Really, she put these chairs in so the husband can sit down and relax while the wife shops," Larry said with a smile. "We know we've got to make enough money to pay our expenses, and make a little bit of a profit. But we're not in here to make a killing."

The business takes special orders for pasteries or gift items, and Lois said she sees potential for gift baskets.

A baker since age 8, Larry Anderson arrived in Moses Lake in 1975 to work in the bakery department of a local grocery store.

Lois first arrived in 1959 with her first husband. She still has the 720 acres southeast of town, and rents the land out.

She said she has been a shopper all her life, and she loves to find things to decorate and meet people.

The couple first started talking about the store during a trip to Hawaii in January.

They have been married for four years. They belonged to the same church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and vaguely knew of each other, although they were not in the same congregations.

"We knew who each other was," Lois said. "Then we both lost our spouses and four years later, we met each other."

Larry said he was out driving down Lois' road in the Moses Lake country.

"I thought I recognized her, I turned around and went back, stopped and she crawled into my car," he said. "Four days later we decided to get married, and got married six weeks after that."

Between the two of them, they have 11 children.

"You put our two families together — our children and their spouses, our grandchildren and their spouses and our great-grandchildren, I think it's 107."

"Just say over 100," Lois advised. "Because we have a hard time keeping up with them."

"You never know," Larry said. "By the time we've made the quotation, somebody else has had a great-grandchild."

For more information, call Final Touch at 509-764-8477.