*** correction ***

So, things were pretty much in the bag. It was a done deal.


But, of course, we live in a land where nothing is simple and where making assumptions can get you in loads of trouble. Here's the scoop:


While I was writing my blog the other day, josh went to go buy our gym membership. Not long after I clicked "Publish Post" my phone rang with news from Josh. About the gym membership.


When we had gone there last week, the four of us all went together because it was a weekend. The guy at the front counter was really great, showing us around and pumping up all the benefits to joining. He laughed with the girls and we all had a great time. He pointed out that, rather than buy two individual memberships (which would have been close to $600 US) we could buy a two-person membership for significantly less, especially since they wre running a special.

SO. Back to the phone call. Josh calls to say that one stipulation they mentioned right as he was about to hand over the dough was that we both had to be there at the same time for us to buy the two-person membership. Josh pointed out the very obvious facts that we had two kids, how can we both be there at the same time? And why didn't he mention any of this during his passionate spiel earlier? Josh asked if they would honor the original price and just let us get two seperate memberships since that's the way they originally led us to believe it worked. They adamantly and repeatedly refused.

That brings the current standing to -- we have not, in fact, joined the gym. Josh came home to talk to me about it, since it would mean paying 25% more when it was already a bit of a stretch to pay the original price. Josh is encouraging me to do it; I'm trying to decide if I'd be irritated about the principle of the matter every time I went to work out. (Thanks to the recent college football season, the word "chippy" has been added to my working vocabulary, and I do honestly wonder if I'd be a little chippy when I went to work out.) So thanks for all your encouuraging comments about working out and joining the gym...it's just a bit premature now! :)

In other news, we got our first snow thusday and friday. It wasn't a lot - nothing like all you okies have had this winter. But technically, it would be the first snow for each of the girls...at least the first one they could potentially play in and remember. There was enough snow on the ground for us to pretend to be like Peter in Ezra Jack Keats' "The Snowy Day", mantha's most favorite book ever. We could walk with our toes pointed in like this...or walk with our toes pointed out like this....crunch, crunch, crunch. We could drag our feet slowly to make tracks...or find a stick to make a new track in the snow.

I bundled emma up in her yellow chicken jacket (a gift from a local friend that I feel very ambivalent about) and mantha in her brown eskimo jacket. Gloves. Boots. Hats. Hoods. Don't forget the camera! So out the door we went.

I had to carry the girls down the steps of the backdoor of our apartment complex because ice covered the steps. The plan was to use the swingset area in back for our activities. Fifteen steps out the door, I wondered how long I'd be able to handle being out in the cold. When I was inside, it seemed like such a fun idea to do together...but now that I was out there, it seemed like the kind of cold that's only fun to look at from indoors, on the couch, in a super-warm blanket with hot cocoa right next to you. It was most certainly NOT the kind of cold that seemed fun enough to make tracks in the snow.

I gently put both girls down; mantha immediately clutched onto my leg and screamed, 'NOOOO!" Emma took a few brave steps, trying at my instruction to walk with her toes pointing out like this.... I quickly snapped two sticks off a nearby bush so we could make tracks, then we high-tailed it back inside. Emma would have been willing to stay outside longer, but I bribed her with a kitkat and hot chocolate, so she changed her mind.

Anyway, the girls will have to wait for another snowy day to have adventures like Peter!