I cannot believe it is already the month of May! One of my new years resolutions was to blog more often, but there is so much that has already happened this year... it's hard to keep up. I am on track with another new years resolution, though: to read 12 books during the year 2012. I am not a fast reader, and it's hard for me to make time to put my feet up and dive into a book - that's why I thought it would be a perfect challenge for me. I only read 4 books in 2011, so I set a goal this year of one book a month and even if I accomplished only 50% of my goal, it would be more than the previous year. Currently, I am on my 5th book since January 1st, and considering it's the 5th month of the year, I feel like I'm right on track.
One of the books Thomas and I read together last year was Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace" while we were completing the Financial Peace course at our church. It has changed our life! We are medical debt free as of last month (from Juli's emergency, no insurance gallbladder surgery in May of 2010). We are no longer purchasing things on credit cards as we are chipping away at that debt each month, and My Gym Arvada should be paid off by this time next year. My Gym Colorado Springs will be put up for sale once we finalize our lease (hopefully this month), but the timing of that sale is in God's hands.
Summers are hard for us financially at My Gym in this gorgeous state. People travel or prefer to be outside ALL Summer instead of continuing their weekly My Gym classes. We are already seeing our numbers drop (March was a very high enrollment month, but we have dropped 30+ kids in each location since then), so we are trying a new marketing approach to capitalize on those who might think of My Gym during the Summer.
Our drop-off Summer Camp starts in both locations the first week of June and we have had successful Summer Camp enrollment nights for those. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, so I took the time to research local elementary schools and type all the teacher's email addresses into a database to send them a summer special just for teachers. Memorial Day is just around the corner, too, and we'll be advertising a huge military discount in Colorado Springs since that gym is located right by the Air Force base.
Staffing is our biggest struggle with owning two gyms. We ran My Gym Arvada for 16 months without staff (just Thomas and I on every class and every birthday party), but now that Juli is mainly in Arvada and Thomas is mainly in Colorado Springs, we are becoming highly dependable on other people. We are hiring in both locations because we need to. It's a little stressful to do so during the approaching slow summer months, but we have to stick to our belief that we will never be able to grow our business if we don't grow internally with dependable/available, highly trained staff.
Some more quick updates...
Pepper turned ONE on April 29th. He has grown so much since we adopted him at 8 weeks old.
My brother is a United States Marine!
We were able to fly to South Carolina for a quick 3 days to be a part of Micah's family day and graduation from Marine boot camp. We were able to visit with Juli's dad, mom, step-dad, aunt Sheila, brother, sister and nephew Jacob.
The Waits siblings: Juli, Micah, Angela
And finally...
I would say that a "chapter" in my life is coming to an end, but it feels more like a book is coming to a close. I have been a nanny off and on since she was 14 years old. Caleb and Chloe (our flower girl and ring bearer in our wedding) were my first "job", and my love for babysitting turned into long-term nanny commitments along side of My Gym duties. Anelise was my most recent almost full-time nanny job, but I had to close that "chapter" when we took over the My Gym in Colorado Springs. I was so sad to not have that "mommy practice" anymore and thought I was done with nannying until Kate (pictured) came along once a week on Thursday mornings. I thought it was manageable since it was only 4 hours a week, however, with the work load of both gyms and staffing troubles, May will be my last month as a nanny. I would still love to babysit here and there for families I keep in touch with, but my consistent day to day and even week to week work will always be My Gym until the glorious day comes when I get to "nanny" my own children for a lifetime.
