Happy Monday!

With the month coming to an end, aren't you glad this isn't on your January cell phone bill....

Update... finally!

WOW, it has been a really long time since I have gotten to post! I feel bad about that, but it shows how busy we have been (and that's a good thing). We have loved our visitors (Thomas' dad moving us here in October, Thomas' mom and sister coming for Thanksgiving, Juli's mom here at Christmas, and Juli's brother, sister and nephew just visited last weekend), and are now sad that we don't have any arrangements for upcoming visitors... it's really just us now. With it just being us, though, we can really focus on our business now and watch it bloom. Here is my attempt to bring you up to speed with what is going on with us and My Gym:

• Business is still sad with the economy, but we are climbing slowly. When we get depressed with how our enrollment numbers are low, we are encouraged that we have held steady the past three and a half months and do see some growth in our numbers.
• We are having a huge "Under New Ownership Open House" in two weeks (February 6-8). We are very excited that Chris King, from My Gym Corporate, is coming to help us out!
• Finding time to market has been tricky, but it is well worth it. People around here are friendly, and most are willing to cross-market... it's just finding the time (or making the time) to build these business-to-business relationships.
• We have sent a mailer to 1,300 people. The mailer had a letter telling everyone "our story" and an Open House flyer with amazing coupons.
• So far, 20 other local businesses have a 11 x 14 poster in their office window about our Open House, and we plan on getting up to 25 more posters in store-fronts this weekend. Hopefully, if people keep seeing the same My Gym logo and posters around town, they will attend the Open House.
• It's hard to get into schools with fliers about My Gym. We were encouraged to donate a FREE Birthday Party to a school for them to put our fliers in the kid's backpacks. Today I went to 7 preschools, and 6 of them were very willing to help us out! The free Birthday Parties will still be successful because it will bring in about 20 guest to each party. This will be a good chance to show those 120 (or more) people who we are and what My Gym offers.
• Meetup.com has been a great way to market our Open House. We did have to pay to post a meet up, but since 6 random people in the cyber world have already RSVP 'yes', it is worth the $9 we paid. I also found a free website to post meet up groups and play dates (MomsLikeMe.com), but haven't heard any responses yet. As funny as it sounds, I have also created a Facebook page for My Gym to try to find people in the area and spread our name. I'm still figuring out the best way to do this, but other gyms have done it so I'm seeking advice right now.
• It's amazing how a subject line of an email can make a difference of how many people view your email. We send out about 2-4 emails a month through Exact Target to our database of names we are constantly collecting. Not very many emails were getting opened when I would make the subject line the subject of the email (i.e. "Winter Camp" or "Holiday Party"). The past two emails, I have made the subject "My Gym in 2009" and "My Gym: New Year! New Owners! New Events". Each of those have gotten a better response in how many views it received. My guess is that people are more curious of the subject matter and want to open it to find out what it is about.
• A Girl Scout troop is coming tomorrow for their very own private class. We are giving tomorrow's class to them for free, but will be doing things that will allow them to receive a petal (they are the Daisy troop). We hope that it is successful and that we may possibly be able to sign them up by making tomorrow's time their ongoing class each week.
• We are doing a Valentine's Day Parent's Night Out. From 5-9pm Saturday, the 14th, Parents will be able to leave the kids here at My Gym to play and have pizza. We are really hoping people get excited about this! We used to have a Parent's Night Out each month at the Orlando My Gym, but it's a new concept to the people in this area.

...that's the most of it right now. Sorry if you are bored with hearing about our business. The only personal update that I can think of to share is that the weather has been beautiful lately. In fact, it's probably warmer here right now than it is in Florida. I would be out riding bikes if I wasn't working so much. They say it will snow on Sunday, though, so it shouldn't be like this for long.

I will post pictures of Angela, Micah, and Jacob's visit (Juli's sister, brother, and nephew) when I get them all on DVD from Angela. She says there are 1,100 pictures, though, so hopefully it will take me less than a month to share the bests ones with you. We had a blast making great memories with them! More later (but hopefully sooner than my last post)....

Ski Train and Snowmobiling

Last Sunday, we took the Ski Train from Union Station in Denver to a resort in Winter Park, CO. The Ski Train passes through 29 tunnels. The last tunnel was 32,789 feet (that's 6.2 miles). The ride took about 2 hours and 15 min each way and was a 56-mile route up the mountains. The train climbed about 4,000 feet in elevation making us about 9,239 feet above sea level.

Once we made it to Winter Park, we enjoyed the resort's shops and had lunch. We also people-watched as there were hundreds of skiers there that day. Later in the afternoon, my mom (who was visiting from Florida) arranged for us to go on a snowmobile tour. Snowmobiling was the most amazing thing! The 2-hour trip was 15 miles of paths up and through the snow mountains that I can't even begin to describe. Before we started our descent down the mountain, we were as high as 11,200 feet and could see amazing sights!

Below is a slide show I put together of our wonderful day. I was having trouble with it, though, so if the slide doesn't work click on view all images to see the slide show or just view them on my Facebook page (the link is below).

Facebook Photo Album Link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6241&l=2095d&id=1608542918