Kalkare Landscaping

YouTube's automatic captions, with names and product words corrected (KalKare, Veres, ChatGPT, pavers, Tremron, Belgard).

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Today we're with one of our KalKare families, the Veres is talking about their new hardscape and outdoor living space.

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All right, guys. So, you guys want to just start off by introducing yourself and then we'll go from there?

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Yeah. Well, my name is uh Aaron Veres and this is my amazing wife, Claudia Veres. And uh we've uh lived here in

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Woodstock here for a few years now. And I don't know why I'm going that route right now, but here we are.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, how did you hear about us initially?

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Um through a uh a referral partner of mine. Um I reached out to him because

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when I bought this house back in 2022, I knew that there was a project that I wanted to invest in the backyard because

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I just had just a a flat little concrete slab and that was it. Like I really had nothing else. And so I was catching up

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with with my friend and without hesitation, he was like, "You got to call Cal." Um, and I hear it turns out to be a family friend who's known you since you were about Yay High.

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And turns out that you've had a passion for this for a very long time is what he told me. So I figured I' i'd give this cow guy a call. And I think after that

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very first conversation, I was like, you know, sounded like you knew exactly what you were talking about. And probably what within the next day at least. I

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mean, you were over here uh taking a look at it and helping us plan out the project.

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Yeah. And it's kind of a small world cuz I actually knew you from Stax's gym, which is pretty crazy. He found out later. I was like, "Wait, I've seen this guy somewhere."

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I know. Sure enough. I've known you for years back then, but you know. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the first conversation.

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It was cold. It was back in January. I was all bundled up and you were just in a hoodie. Yeah. Not bundled up. Didn't faze you one bit. H I know. It's one of

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those things that uh I don't know. I'm a polar bear. My wife, not so much.

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No, I was freezing. Cal and I were both freezing.

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Yes. Yes. And so, initially, what were you guys looking for when you reached out? You know, you wanted to do a project. You know, you wanted an outdoor

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entertaining space. What were your initial ideas? And then, you know, how did we fulfill those?

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Oh, boy. Yeah. To make a long story short, uh me and the uh creativity department uh we do not go hand in hand.

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This is where certainly my boss over here came in um and really helped with a lot of the ideas and designs because really it was just more of hey I want to

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be able to use something for like the mornings, the evenings when we host and just have people over and actually enjoy the backyard because as you know our our

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two hooligans, Scrappy and Georgia, uh this backyard was just for them to terrorize. Uh, and we really didn't have

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anything for us. Um, and so just when when you came on over, we started to kind of get a game plan. You know, the

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the cobblestone, the mulch that's behind us was just a a dead sloped hill. I had no idea how any of this was going to

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look. Um, it it just again, you guys really knocked it out of the park, especially on the design part.

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Yeah, absolutely. I remember she came with me with some ChatGPT images and that kind of gave me a starting point and then we did quote you guys for quite

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a bit of other stuff. Retaining wall bit couple different designs on the patio. I think we went through a bunch of different iterations of the quote.

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What was that experience like for you guys? Was it pretty easy?

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It was it every time I would get a quote again everything got forwarded on over to the boss. We would talk about it and and again ChatGPT. Hey, what would

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this actually look like? Um, but overall, I mean, it was quick because the second I got the quote in, her and

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I, we would have a conversation and then I would probably reach out to you a few hours later and whether it was to change something up or to kind of bounce

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additional ideas off. I mean, I every time I call, you pick up the phone and within an hour after that conversation, I had a new quote, a new design for us to talk about.

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Yeah. Yeah. That was great. That's one of my favorite things about working with you guys. You guys were so fast.

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like same day you guys would have a response on the quote and where we needed to go from there. And so, uh, we finally got the pavers nailed down. We went through a bunch of different

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catalogs and you guys actually came out, looked at the pavers at one of our vendors. Shout out Sod Masters.

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And so, what was that like getting to actually touch the pavers, feel them, kind of touch on miss? Yeah.

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Okay, never mind. You touch.

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No, it it was just it was incredible because again like to actually go and physically see what these pavers going to look like because we know you can

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look at something in a magazine, you can look at something on Facebook, whatever it is, but it's another thing to actually go there. And it was so funny because while we were looking at all the

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different pavers, you know, you brought out the idea. You're like, "Hey, this is what it looks like when it's dry. Let me show you when it's wet." And you just dumped the whole thing of water on it.

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It's like, "Hey, when it rains, this is what it's going to look like as well." So, it's, you know, even thinking outside the box to address those elements like, oh, okay. Yeah, that that

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does make sense. And and honestly, that actually played a role for us to change the one of the original pavers that we're looking at because when it would get wet, we found out that it was going

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to be too dark. Um, so I I'm it worked out really well actually going into the store and seeing everything.

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I was going to say the same thing like we we knew we wanted a host. We knew we wanted a place that we can enjoy as well

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as the dogs. But I think the best thing is when you listen to our goals, you then took that and you added your

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creativity and it was just so nice to go like you said in person because I like to see it. I can't visualize. We can't visualize what it's going to look like. Oh yeah.

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With what you say. Um, so it's just so wonderful to be able to see it starting to come to life, but also knowing that you had our best interest and you knew

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what we wanted at the end of the day when we didn't even know really ourselves. Yeah. And it was kind of a hectic time.

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You guys were getting ready to go on your big New Zealand trip. Oh, yeah.

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And we did have some unexpected things pop up during the construction process.

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With any project, you're going to have unexpected things. But the first one was the paver that you guys picked out that we spent so much time deciding on. We

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found out that it wasn't manufactured in this region and so last second we did have to switch from Tremron to Belgard

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and you guys just kind of trusted me with that and I appreciate that and you end up liking it more, right?

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Yeah, we love it. We love it. We look at it even with some of the bird droppings.

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Yeah, absolutely. And then during the project, of course, we had uh the column on the house didn't have the proper footing. There were some challenges

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there and you guys were great about trusting us with that. Did you guys have any uncertainty or anything like that? No. Uh I mean we fully trusted you guys.

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Um certainly when it came up to like breaking up all the like the concrete slab which I am thrilled that we did. Uh because we could have gone the cheap

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route and just attached the pavers to the end. And I'm glad we didn't cuz again we found out that a key structure to my my house um shout out to this

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builder. I won't say who it is. Um, it turns out that was not uh it was not stable. So, even with you guys actually

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doing the work, you pointed out, you sent us the quote, you said, "Hey, I can get this fixed and more importantly, I can do this the right way as this builder should originally did." But, you know, it is what it is.

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Yeah.

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U, but it's like you said, every project's going to have some curve balls. Um, we're just really appreciative with like being upfront. if

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there was something that was out of, you know, certain control, you always did whatever you can to make it right. Uh, and that's all we can ever ask for.

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Yeah. Yeah. What did you guys think of having the team here? We were here for probably a little over a week.

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We loved the team. We could see how much they how much hard work they put into it. We even brought them Chick-fil-A biscuits the one day. Oh, yeah. It was freezing and sometimes it was raining.

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Um, and they just worked so hard and they were so wonderful and they said hi to the dogs in the window. It was just it was great meeting them. I was going to say the average temperature outside

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had to have been like 28 degrees while you guys were working. It was a cold week. That was awful for you guys.

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Yeah, we were bundled up that week for sure. 100%. So, and you guys left on your trip. We weren't quite wrapped up.

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We had a couple more things to do and I appreciate you trusting us and then you guys came back to a finished product. We also loved all the all the photos that

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you sent and the updates because again we didn't know really what to visualize and so seeing it come to life was really cool while we were away.

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Yeah. And by the way um and I'll give you a lot of kudos because I talked to a lot of the neighbors around here and

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they were incredibly appreciative when you guys originally went door knocking and just say like said who you guys were, what you know the expectations were going to be with trucks coming in and out, gravel pavers and whatnot.

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um you got a lot of a lot of praise within like the actual community itself.

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Uh because they really appreciate that because we know a job when you're breaking up concrete, it's not the most quiet thing in the world.

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So they were really appreciative of you guys doing that. Um they said no one's ever no other company has ever done something like that, gone

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door to door and said, "Hey, just letting you know we're going to be here for a while. Um sorry." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think

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communication as a whole is really important whether that's with you guys, whether that's with our vendors and then just communicating with the neighborhood

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because you guys have to deal with, you know, the wrath of your neighbors, right? You know, we're just here during the day and so I think it's important that we help you guys maintain good

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relationships with your neighbors because you have to live here, right?

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And so, um, that's really important to us.

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Yeah. No, we appreciate, you know, everything you've done and, you know, I've always sh I've already shared like your your name and number with a handful of people and uh um there's there's no

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doubt in my mind that whenever I see that opportunity to refer you, you know, it's you're you're my guy.

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We appreciate it. Yeah, that's how we found you guys. So, or you guys found us. So, that's word of mouth is so important in our business and you know,

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that's how we get some of our best clients obviously. So, and then when you guys got back from your trip, you hadn't seen the you you saw photos obviously,

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but you hadn't seen it. What was your initial reaction when you guys, you know, looked out your back door? Jaw-dropping.

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Yeah, it it was uh I didn't think it was real. Uh even just like seeing the photos. I mean, again, even the photos don't do it justice. You come out here,

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you realize how like large of a space this actually is, and it's everything we could have asked for and more.

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Yeah. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Um, and even just from the start and even to the finish of the project, you know, turns

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out that you guys ended up having extra materials and out of the kindness, your own hearts did some extra work by uh, you know, my trash can area over there, which I'm great, you know, greatly

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appreciative. And, you know, when people go the the extra mile, it goes a long way. Yeah, appreciate that feedback.

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Absolutely. And now that you guys have had this for I guess probably two or three months now, you know, have you guys gotten the use out of it that you hoped more?

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Um, way more. So, for one, this was always Aaron's idea. I didn't I didn't really see anything going on in this

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backyard. I was like, it's small like next house we'll put in put the money into the backyard.

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Um, and I will say I'm out here every single day. It is so beautiful, so peaceful. Um, I've never had a place to

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just sit back here, you know, and the dogs have always enjoyed it. We've always thrown the ball with them. Now I can do that. Now I can read my book. We come out here for coffee.

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Um, we can host our friends and family. It's amazing. Oh, yeah. Great for whiskey nights, too. Yeah. Maybe a little cigar. Yeah. Yeah.

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Oh, absolutely.

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So, yeah, we we've used it a lot. And I mean, judging by the dog hair that's on his furniture, you could tell scrappy Georgia have as well. So, absolutely.

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this is this is their uh their kingdom as well when when their mama comes outside. So, um I'm just glad that the family really enjoys it and and again,

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we've got all the money out of this already. It's only been 2 or 3 months.

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I appreciate that. And hopefully when you sell the house, you'll get it all back too, plus some.

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You know, that's the thing with hardscape. You know, you you should get all your money back and it's an investment rather than just something you guys want, right?

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Absolutely. And everyone who's come who has come by and we've shown this to, they've all said the same thing. Yeah, absolutely. I see the dogs are uh looking at us throughout the door.

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That was that was probably my favorite part of the project aside from just the construction was getting to come here and hang out with the dogs and such.

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They were intrigued. Your crew uh uh Georgia and Scrappy, they would be sitting out by that door. They would just watch you guys work the whole day.

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It was the most entertained they've ever been.

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Yeah. Yeah. They're they're fun. They're a lot of energy. Yeah. Yeah, they They really They really are.

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The golden one is the Georgia. She She'll watch and then she just snoozes and she's like, "All right, it's all good." She's my lazy girl.

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Yeah.

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Well, how do you guys uh how do we compare to other contractors that you've worked with so far?

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Oh, it's night and day. Yeah. No, it's I I tend to uh Well, there's a lot of contractors out there I don't get get

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along with. Um and you know, it's each his own. And let's put it this way there. I've been trying to get a project quoted on something like this for almost

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two years now. And between never even getting a quote and then getting a bunch of spam email after that after that process.

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Um, no, I it really has it's been incredible. Uh, there are a select few people that I refer uh because it's

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always a reflection on our name when we give give names out and, you know, giving out KalKare landscaping is is got to be one of the easiest things to do.

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Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. And hopefully at the next house we're going to do an even bigger project. Oh, yeah.

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We're going to do maybe you'll have a pool then. Hopefully. And then close many more mortgages, my friend.

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Yeah. Well, hope hopefully you'll do mine someday and and uh we'll go from there and I'll help you help you get a better landscape, bigger landscape, and

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we'll have a pool, massive patio, some artificial turf for the dogs.

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Abs. Absolutely. Outdoor kitchen. We will have a putting green in the backyard. That is non-negotiable.

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Oh, yeah. Maybe a couple couple different.

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Absolutely. Well, I know you were already telling me you're doing some artificial turf jobs and so Oh, yeah. I I know you got that underneath your belt, too. And so, I I know we'll be uh we'll we'll be ready time comes.

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Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. I mean, I always say to, you know, everybody I work with, you know, you could have the best job, the coolest

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job, the most fun, you know, stunning results at the end, but what makes a job is the clients. And you guys have exceeded, you know, our expectations for

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clients. And we have loved working with you guys. Seriously, you know, we appreciate it. You guys are 11 out of 10 yourself. So, thank you for everything.

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Appreciate it. Thank you.