What had been planned as a quiet day was no more. Jenny, Lorrie, Marcy and Ching Lee were going to look at Jeanna’s new house and plan the video system she wanted. They were the experts with that kind of thing. Marcy was going to play chauffer with her new truck.

Vicky and I were going to open the gym. We didn’t expect many members to show up today but a few indicated they might. With all the gift coupon-books we had sold as Christmas gifts there might be some coming to check out the gym.

Wendy, Misty, Sarah and Belinda were going to see friends and then come over to the gym and relieve one or both of us depending on customer traffic.

Vicky and I were going to work out while we were there. It was a good time to burn off some of those calories we had been getting from all the holiday food. Plus it would give me more time to think about the events of last night. Before we finished our workout there were over 100 people in the gym. A couple of them wanted to do a short run on the marathoners. Normally they were booked but today they were sitting idle. I helped each of then set up a 3k trial run. With two more coming there should be a lot more openings for our customers to use them.

In a week college would be starting back up. Misty and Belinda needed to move their things into their dorm room and Sarah needed to carry her things back. I would be back at the day job. Patti had been going every day except for the weekends and the holiday. Jenny would be back to her Annapolis schedule for a few days. She had several trials that she was the prosecutor on. The gym would be operating solely with the paid people during the days for the first time since we had opened it. One of us owners had been around since the first day because of all the vacations, holidays and the like.

Kim, Marsha and now Wendy would be the day people. Both Moms’ were on call if they were needed during the day.

Lisa Coles (Jenny’s mom) was going to tutor in the class room most nights. She had retired from the school district and had been getting antsy until she started tutoring my mates, but that was on the down side with them almost finished college. Ching Lee, Vicky and Lorrie only had two classes to do in the final two semesters. Marcy only had one and that was to finish her business degree. Marcy had been communicating with her business professor and he was willing to accept management of the gym as class work. She simply had to go once a week and go over the gym books and do reports that she could e-mail him.

Lisa now had Joey and the six north girls to tutor. When I had picked up the folder with the contracts I had left for them to read, they had all been signed and witnessed by each other. I was serious about them getting into the local college and keeping good grades. I had not had any discussions with Shelia about the south side girls or with them to see if they were interested in self improvement but I would the very next time they were here. Snooty seemed to be straight-headed and I knew that some of them were still in high school. Very few girls ever made a living out of boxing other than being punching bags for the ones that did and usually that was a short career.

Amy had two more hand gun training classes scheduled for after the first of the year. One class was in the afternoon two days a week and one in the evening on Wednesday and Saturday. Joey was enrolled in the evening classes. Amy was going to take a break from the training for a while. There were shooting competitions that she needed to be in to qualify for the next Olympics.

We had planned on Marcy being at the gym full time but with the car rental agency and work on the security deal she was going to be too busy to be involved in anything but administrative work. I was sure as I could be that tons of paper would start coming her way if for nothing else than just to get familiar with it. Somewhere there would have to be a big office and I would just as soon it was in our house or the gym and not at Jeanna’s house.

That would be the next topic when we all got together is where to put an office big enough to handle all of it. The only place left to expand in the gym was to add a second floor over the existing rooms. With the 20 foot ceilings in the building it would be easy to do. I would have to check with Bob’s construction to see if there had been enough ceiling beams in the new rooms to handle the extra load. I knew he had built them heavy enough to use the area over the rooms as storage if we ever wanted to. At the time he had said all we would need to do was add a hand rail and a stairs.

I could not believe the number of people coming to the gym on Christmas day. On top of that there were ladies wanting tans. I finally called Wendy, Misty, Belinda and Sarah to come help out if they were anywhere close. Luckily they had just returned to the house.

When they came in Wendy asked me. “Did you know that Jason and your Dad were in the house watching football games?” Then she said, “My dad just went in and joined them. He showed them how to split the screen so they could watch 4 games at one time.”

That told me two things. One, they had gotten bored and were most likely hiding from the moms, or two, they figured we had cold beer in the fridge and plenty of food or snacks. Now that they could watch 4 games at one time we would never get rid of them. I had a laugh at that one. We would have to embarrass them to get them to leave.

With the girls there to look after the gym Vicky and I went to look at Jeanna’s house. I had thought our house was big but Jeanna’s was much bigger. It had been built as a summer house and designed to entertain large groups of people at the same time. There were three very large dining rooms and a big recreational room with a pool table and big screen TV’s. There was a huge commercial kitchen with a walk-in pantry, walk-in freezer and refrigerator. Out back were a pool, hot tub and a tennis court.

The upstairs was indeed as Jeanna had said was laid out in suites; there were four of them. Each had a master bedroom and bath along with lounge area with a table, recliner and TV. This house must have been designed by someone associated with big hotels or motels. It was going to be easy to turn into the complex that Jeanna wanted. A house keeper/maid or two was in order.

I felt that one of the very large dining rooms would be turned into an office area, one a meeting room or split into two meeting rooms, and the last one to remain a formal dining room. After the tour and some idea tossing Vicky and I headed back to the gym.

The rest of the day was quiet. The gym crowd dwindled down quickly as evening set in and by the early closing time we had chosen everyone was gone. We were joined by the Moms to watch the last of the football games. Supper consisted of an old stand-by; home-made cold-cut subs and hot bowls of tomato soup. It was a quiet evening with our big family.

After our Moms and Dads left we had a family meeting about the businesses we were getting into. I had been right on with how Jeanna was going to set up her house. She decided than instead of solid wall offices she would use the large cubical design office furniture and not do major work in the house. Since the bank was picking up the tab on the house she did not want the auto rental offices there.

I floated the idea about a second floor over all the existing rooms in the gym with a stairs for access. We could add several more internet hookups, connect up the rest of the available phone lines and have one business address. Most likely we would not need any heat up there in the winter with the gym kept at 68. The idea was well received. There were obstacles that would have to be explored and overcome starting tomorrow. It was three hours later that we made it into bed exhausted.

EDIT by Alfmeister