"If plan A doesn’t' work, the alphabet has 25 more letters" -Claire Cook. 

This quote is so fitting for us!  Our journey to The Clubhouse was a long one.  I (Nicole) started doing home childcare in 2014.  I loved it.  I had the best group of kids and families that I still cherish to this day.  I did, however, have a hard time saying "no, I'm full" to families searching for care, and I felt a need to do more as I watched my waitlist grow and grow with no end in sight.  I looked at my husband Aaron and told him that there's got to be something more we can do.  That's when I started researching center-based childcare in Minnesota. 

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Navigating the purchasing, rules, regulations and finances were all very new and foreign to me; but I knew this is what we were meant to do, and we were meant to bring more childcare to our community.   Over the span of 3 years, we explored 5 different buildings as potential childcare sites.  We would go through the steps just to run into a wall, obstacle, or rule that we couldn’t follow at that site.  Aaron had great patience through all of this….me, not so much.  I had a vision, and I wanted to see it fulfilled!  All those sites fell through for a reason, as it brought us to our current location.  It was perfect from the beginning. 

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We bought The Club Bar and Grill on January 11, 2018, and started the whirlwind of renovations and Minnesota paperwork right away.  While onsite renovations were happening, we were behind the scenes getting all of our policies, procedures, and licenses in place.  We were fortunate right away to find an awesome staff that had visions and values that lined up with ours—8 of the 11 we started with are still here to this day!  

We were able to pull it all off in 6 months and opened on June 12th.  While we started slow with 12 kiddos, we quickly grew.  We were ready for our first expansion the summer of 2019.  During this expansion, we increased the number of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers that we could take.  The summer of 2020 we were able to put in an awesome playground for our older groups, and a shaded turf outdoor play space for our younger ages.  Don’t worry, I’m not done yet!  I have big plans and am always looking on how to improve our program and our space for the kids and families we serve.

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I am a McIntosh native, and Aaron grew up outside of Erskine.  I have very fond memories of waitressing at BB Café for 5 years and am happy that I get to see my “regular customers” around town still.  We both graduated from Win-E-Mac High School and are so happy to see our kids getting the same great education and experience that we had.   After high school, we both continued our education at the University of North Dakota.  Aaron graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Business Administration with majors in investments, banking, and financial economics.  While working at Win-E-Mac as the business manager, he learned that he wanted to continue in the school system and went on to get his Master in Educational Leadership from Concordia St. Paul, and then took it further and his Superintendent’s License from MSUM .  I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology and was getting my master in Special Education when we started our journey to where we are now.  I never imagined this is where it would lead me!  We joke that we literally see kids birth to gradation between the two of us. Working with kids was our calling that we didn’t see coming when we went to college. 

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We currently reside outside of Erskine with 5 kids of our own.  Aaron is the Superintendent at Ada-Borup-West School District and continues to coach football at Win-E-Mac.  We are always a party (or a circus depending on your lens) and we wouldn’t have it any other way.  We can be found at a field or court of some type, on the water, or partaking in very fun yet competitive family game nights.  We consider ourselves very fortunate that we are able to serve our community in the capacity that we have.  I am so thankful for the kids, families, and staff that have come into our lives through The Clubhouse.