Fascinating Parents at The Little Gym

Each semester, we welcome families back and welcome new members to The Little Gym.  In our announcements we ask (challenge!) parents to get to know each other.  You'll be sitting next to each other for 19 weeks, and we have fascinating parents who come to the gym.   We've had Trailblazer families, local TV personalities and producers,  parents in all sorts of professions and into all sorts of hobbies.  By saying hello, you never know who you'll meet.

In January of this year, we a Dad came in to try a class with his 2 year old.  He said that grandmother (his mother) would be coming to class too. She was visiting from out of town.  When she arrived, I asked where she was from.  She said Massachusetts. (I am too.)  I asked where.  She said Natick. (I am too.)  It turns out that her son who was in The Little Gym class, graduated from my high school 2 years ahead of me.  We enjoyed trying to find connections from the past.

Just this past Monday, at my son's very first Cub Scout pack meeting, I was standing next to another Dad as the new Tiger Cubs were doing some running races.  We got to talking and I found out that he had moved out to West Linn over the summer and was from Massachusetts...  yes... Natick too.  He graduated the year before me.  He also went to the same college as me (Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts) with the same major.

That's quite a coincidence that I ran into two others from Natick, Massachusetts, a fairly small town in the suburbs of Boston. 

So next time, you're at The Little Gym, say hello to another parent.  Ask if they're originally from Portland.  Find out what they do, or what hobbies they have.  You just might meet a *really* fascinating person, or perhaps an old (or new) friend!

Our Fall Open House is this Sunday from 2-5pm

Twice a year, we open the doors to the general public to come visit The Little Gym of Lake Oswego during our Open House.  This Sunday will be Marie and my 10th Open House.  (This January is our 5 year anniversary of owning & operating The Little Gym of Lake Oswego, and the 15th anniversary of The Little Gym of Lake Oswego's existence!)

All The Little Gym employees will be on hand showing skill demos, leading activities, serving refreshments and most of all, ensuring that all guests have a fun and *safe* time at the gym.  We'll be raffling off t-shirts, CD's, hats, Winter Break camp days, free annual memberships, and the grand prize of a free annual membership plus 4 weeks of classes at the gym.

Every year, we wonder how well we have gotten the word out about our Open House.  And we always keep our fingers crossed that we'll have a good turn-out.

If you're reading this and you haven't been to The Little Gym before, or recently, we hope that you'll come for a visit this Sunday (2-5pm), and meet us and have a little bit of fun while learning about The Little Gym.  For directions, please see the Announcement page of our Web site.

The Little Gym voted #1 by Metro Parent Magazine readers!

We are excited to announce that The Little Gym of Lake Oswego was recently awarded the #1 Birthday Party Place *and* #1 Children's Gym in the greater Portland area in Metro Parent Magazine's 2010 "Family Favorites" Reaader Survey.


Each year Metro Parent Magazine surveys its readers of their "family favorite" places in the Portland region. In their September 2010 issue, the winners were announced.

Thank you, members and friends for voting The Little Gym #1!   You can read about all of the Family Favorites winners on pages 32-35 in the September issue:  http://www.metro-parent.com/issues/sept10/index.html

Here's what they said about The Little Gym:

Birthday Party Place

The Little Gym earned top honors in this category with the consensus being that they do it all for you – and it’s all fun. “Love their ‘care free’ birthday parties. They do everything for you!”

Children’s Gym
The Little Gym also (overwhelmingly) took the top spot in this category. Along with their “very nurturing and knowledgeable instructors,” several parents mentioned that their children have gained considerable confidence through their classes there.



You all know how hard we try to hire and train the very best instructors to implement The Little Gym programs so your children can grow their skills and confidence each week, and your pride in them can soar. Now the rest of Portland knows too! Thank you!

So long Summer, hello Fall!

Is summer over already?  Yikes!  I read a great book (before kids) about innovation.  It talked about how some things speed up and some things slow down.  It's probably a bit controversial so I won't put all of the details here.  E.g. Discussions about the Big Bang and about computers developing the ability to think like live humans.  Email me if you want the title. :-)    As we age, it does seem that time goes by faster. 

My children are now 6 and 9.  Blaise had his birthday -- a Star War themed party at The Little Gym -- a few months back, and Freya's having a sleep over party tonight with 8 of her friends. (A friend suggested I turn the clocks forward 2 hours and buy some ear plugs.)   For Freya and Blaise, hopefully they're enjoying their childhood, relishing each experience and growing from them.

This summer we had them enrolled in various camps around Portland.  They experienced digging through regurgitated owl pellets, finding small mouse bones.  They learned how to "post" at horse camp.  And we all got introduced to tennis via a fun family tennis lesson for a few Tuesdays this summer.   We did get away for a week to a cabin in California.  Freya did her first "real" hike with us and did her first (guided) trail ride on a horse with me.  And we did get the annual Oregon Coast camping trip in last weekend. We also had plenty of down-time so they could experience the obligatory boredom of summer and focus on coming up with creative ways to keep boredom at bay.  (I'm still trying to get the stains out of our carpet.)

With Fall starting, they're excited to start school. We met their teachers the other day at their Open House.  This is also the first year that Freya and Blaise can do gymnastics together (Grade School Flips/Hot Shots).  We'll see how that goes.  

I'm excited about our Fall semester at the gym starting.  We have a few new instructors coming on board and are saying good-bye to a few too.  Teacher Amy is going to be traveling for a good chunk of the semester, so she'll be around helping with some training and substituting for a while.  Teacher Kelly (the *new* Kelly) has some family committments and is going to be finishing nurisng school.   And Teacher Michael is going back to OSU for his sophomore year.  Hopefully they'll *all* be back again!

Teacher Ana joins us in our Parent/Child, and Pre/K gymnastics and dance prorams. She recently graduated from Lewis & Clark from their Theater program.  She's going to be directing one of their upcoming productions.  And Teacher Andrea is joining us from The Little Gym of Beaverton. She'll be leading Birthday Parties and helping out in some Pre/K and Grade school classes too.

We're looking forward to having many of our summer class and camp students coming back for Fall classes, and we're excited about how many of of our former students and brand new students have been signing up in droves these past few weeks.  It's going to be a great year!

Let's hope it doesn't go *too* fast so we can enjoy it! :-)

Happy handstands.  -Ron