Merry Christmas to Us

Thanks to a gift of money from my wonderful parents at Christmas, Tracy and I were able to sign up at 24-Hour Fitness and pay for both our first and last month's membership with money left over.

We checked out LA Fitness, but didn't like the fact that their "manager" wouldn't budge on the membership initiation fee of $99 total for both of us. I was surprised that she let $60 a month ($29.95 per person) walk out the door in this economy over $99. She said she could make a deal with us and wave the initiation fee for $34.95 a month fees for both of us. Seriously? Terrible negotiating lady, don't lose your job at LA Fitness for a sales job at a car dealership. You wouldn't make it a day. At that rate, our initiation fee would have been paid for in 9 months.

So, we promptly went over to 24-Hour Fitness and scored the same deal ($29 a month) sans membership fee. The best part is, there's no contract. It seems fitness centers have wised up lately and are discontinuing the contract policies they previously had in place. 24 Hour Fitness doesn't have locations in Minnesota, unfortunately, so we'll have to end our memberships if, strike that, when we move home.

We could have bought 2-year memberships at Costco for $299.95 each, but we just don't have that commitment right now. That would have been roughly $12 a month, which is really hard to beat. But, let's face it, there's no way we'll be here 2 more years. At this rate, I hope we can hold out until after the Branger's visit in mid-June. Maybe it was just Christmas and seeing family and friends or Tracy's 2-plus hour commute to work last week, but a bout of home sickness has hit. Strangely, during 0 degree weather in Minny while we are enjoying 80 degrees here. Go figure.

Yuppy Photo

Tracy and I have chosen our photographer for the wedding. You can see his portfolio at Yuppy Photo. He shoots as a tandem with his wife, and we were pretty impressed with his work. Yapuncich Photography gives anybody who signs our guest book a $5 credit. All you have to do is go to this link and pre-register. This gives you the option to log in and view our photos from the engagement session or wedding. Our engagement session will hopefully be when we come back in February.

Coming Soon...

I'm shooting for a launch date of January 11 for Vebe Visual's website. We are working toward leaping into the new year with the business up and running now that the branding is wrapped up. We'll see what it takes to balance Vebe and my current work flow without disrupting life completely. Hopefully the economy starts to turn here because I know Vebe can stand on its own in 6 months time ... with the right revenue backing of course.

We've tried several site concepts but, being a design / communications company, settling on the right look is no easy task. A clean, white look with minimal graphics seems to look the best and is understated, which is what we were looking for with the design. We'll save the overly fancy graphics for Prep Sports Insider ... our first major project to be launched as part of the Vebe publishing portion of the business. We've already got the updated logo wrapped up for that one too! Once we've updated the coming soon graphic for www.prepsportsinsider.com, we'll be sure to let you know. Right now the focus is on Vebe Visual's launch and the holidays!

Hawai'i photostream.

For our friends and family who don't have Facebook. What a vacation!

Wedding Date and Reception Location Set!

That's right folks, Tracy Burns will become Tracy Vogtman on November 6, 2010. We have reserved The Grands at Mulligans for the wedding reception. We are so special we got the Grand Ballroom!

Saturday's were already slim pickings and the nice locations in St. Cloud and Sartell tend to go fast. That said, we made the move and are willing to gamble on fall Minnesota weather in November. We are both excited to have such a nice reception center for the wedding.

Now, time to search for what's really important: where we'll exchange our vows. First, we are checking with Tracy's church St. Francis Xavier in Sartell to see what kind of wedding we could have. We don't want to have an hour-long Catholic service, so we hope they can do something different. If not, Tracy's friend Ellen goes to a newer Lutheran church that would have a nice ceremony. We'll get it all figured out here in two weeks.

We are both excited and I'm sure November will come a lot faster than we anticipate! There's a lot to do, but a lot of it we can handle ourselves. With the help of Vebe Visual, we'll design the wedding invitations and some cool table settings no problem!

But, I'm sure all the small things will add up. We'll be sending out Save the Date invitations along with some engagement photos in February ... engagement photos we still have to take of course.