A Ton of Fun in 2021: Week 51 Recap

It's finals week at ONU, so it's absolute chaos. The best part was hearing what the Social Media Strategies class was doing as they pass off the business college social accounts for me to maintain this spring. After they were done presenting their final projects to myself and the client (Dean Navin), we took a picture in front of the polar bear. 

Kristi's 40th birthday was on Dec. 12, but we couldn't meet up on her actually birthday. So we made arrangements to meet for lunch at Panera. I bought her this t-shirt for her to sport around, and she thought it was cute and funny like I did.

Another thing that the Agozzino family likes around Christmas time is a recipe called Christmas Crack. It's nothing more than cereal with karo syrup, brown sugar and butter poured over and harden over it with peanut m&m's. YUM. I had to call up my girl Abby Brock for the recipe since she graduated and I missed this delicious treat. 

Saturday had us skipping Isaac's basketball game to head to Ft. Meigs (Perrysburg area) for a swim meet.  Olivia has been training for this for weeks, as she knows those girls up that way are FAST. She knew she would have good competition.  Isaac did his typical thing of just showing up, doing his thing...but he nailed it. He was winning events and poor Olivia got her first dose of humble pie, being the youngest and finishing between 4-8th place in her events. The meet ended in epic fashion, as someone hit a telephone pole out in front of the Y, and all the lights went out. Because it was going to take a couple of hours to fix, they cancelled the end of the meet. It wasn't all bad, as between races the kids loved playing in their game room. 

Olivia IM video/ fly video/ back video

Isaac 50 free video/ 100 free video

A Ton of Fun in 2021: Week 50 Recap

My election is officially official when this puppy arrived this week. It was a notarized and sent from Allen County Board of Elections. It came today in the mail and I didn't know if I should frame it or if I should file it away. I don't start until after the new year, but until then, I have something to look forward to in 2022. 

Tuesday we celebrated Jeremy's birthday. The kiddos had me go with them and buy him an ice cream cake at Menchies. Complete with oreo crust, Jeremy's favorite. We also got him a Cleveland baseball shirt, new red Nike sweats, and Bombas socks. I pretty sure we hit it out of the park...no pun intended! 

We also made plans on Wednesday night to Yamato's to celebrate Jeremy's birthday. Phil and Deb met us there to help celebrate getting him a new pair of shorts and an under amour shirt. Yamato's lets you drink sake while everyone at the table stares you down.  I actually caught it on video this year! I think the kids loved where daddy picked to celebrate since Japanese steakhouses is the Agozzino family favorite! 

I needed the internet to work this week especially, as it is that time where schools are wrapping up their semesters. Of course when it was time to jump on a call or meeting, it wasn't working. I called in IT services AKA Isaac since Jeremy was at the gym.  His solution was to unplug and plug it in again. It didn't work, but I certainly appreciate the effort. The internet turned back on shortly after Isaac did the troubleshooting, so I think it was all his good work that made it come on again! 

Being dead week at ONU, the other big thing at school was our department Christmas party. This year it was held in Findlay at Gillians Winery. It was nice to have a couple of drinks and chat with people from the office without masks! We had light hors d'oeuvres and drinks and plenty of smiles and laughs. The perfect night to relax and gear up for finals week with others who felt the same stress.

 

Clark W. Griswold is still hard at work at the Agozzino household.  He got the Christmas lights up in the front yard since the side of the house has a construction entrance. Jeremy loves doing the lights as much as the kiddos enjoy looking at them and plugging them in every night to share with all. 

It's been unseasonably warm this week, which has been a blessing. We had the concrete poured for the back porch and we were able to put our name and year into it. I made sure to put it nice and large in the the spot where the storage room will be so we'll be the only ones to see it...but won't be able to miss it. For how much we're investing in the project, I wanted our name to be engraved. LOL. 

This weekend found Isaac at home playing basketball and Olivia in Shelby swimming in the Rubber Duckie Invite. Just Olivia and I went up the night before to spend the night. She did amazing at the meet and won plenty of rubber duckies. Here is her backstroke, fly, and breaststroke. Isaac's basketball team lost again, but we were able to make it back to watch the second half of the game. 

The Ugly Sweater party at Ryan and Jill's was a success. We were invited to the adult only shenanigans and had an absolute blast. I have lots of pictures from the evening, but have agreed to share none. I think my favorite part of the evening was learning how to play taco, cat, goat, cheese, pizza card game. Jeremy's was still hanging with the big boys and drinking his favorite, yet hard to find, Buffalo Trace. 

A Ton of Fun in 2021: Week 49 Recap

Never did I set out to be a published author. But here we are. I got one of my favorite Christmas gifts early this year...my hardback version of my PR Principles textbook. They sent two copies and it was delightful to have it physically in my hands. I called up my co-author immediately and let her know it came and be on the lookout. So exciting! StuKent has certainly been good to its authors, showering us with love and gifts throughout the year. I'd highly recommend partnering with them to author a textbook if you're looking for a good author/publisher relationship. 

This week's blog is actually being loaded in the order the pictures uploaded to the blog. I hate that part about the blog and the little ability to rearrange them once they get uploaded.  First up is Ava's 10th birthday party they had at a horse stable in Celina. OMG was Olivia excited. This was her first time riding and horse and she couldn't have been more excited. They got to pet and ride the horses, she got to tie-dye a t-shirt and got to hang out with all her friends. A huge day for her (and of course Ava)! 

Saturday found Isaac and his Elida team playing against St. Mary's at their first 5-6th grade basketball game. Jeremy, not knowing how to say no to anyone, again volunteered to coach his team. They have practices every Tuesday and Thursday night, but games are always on Saturdays.  Most of their games are home, which is fun, but they're also all at 2 p.m., making Isaac choose between basketball or swim meets. We all know what will win out most of the season--especially with Jeremy as the coach. They lost their first game 17-4, and Isaac scored half of those 4 points. LOL. Room to grow right?

Saturday morning before all craziness of the day began I took the kiddos downtown to the Lima Christmas Extravaganza. All the businesses were open and had the stores decorated to celebrate the season. We went to the hobby/comic store and they were selling hot chocolate and sugar cookies. We bought some and walked around in a store we normally wouldn't go to, which is the entire point. Joey's had a Grinch and sled out in front of it and of course we grabbed a few photos with him. We ended up going to Pointe of Joy and picking up some cute things and eating a Kewpee before heading home. 

Friday night we got tickets to attend the Holiday Spectacular at the Civic Center. This is the first year since 2015 that our kiddos haven't been in the production. It was certainly bittersweet, but with no show last year and having too many other activities happening during the holiday season, this was something that had to go. We let the kids decide, and they decided that they were going to let this go. Olivia said she didn't know they did some of the things (like the light up gloves in Santa Baby) and it was pretty cool to sit through only one of the eight performances! ONU always puts on the perfect show to set the mood for the season!

Coco bombs are all the rage today. Paying roughly $5 per ball, Ann and I thought they couldn't really be too bad to make and an experience in itself for the kids. Well they were an experience to say the least. We had the molds, we had the chocolate and hot chocolate, we even had the marshmallows. The first ones turned out just fine, it wasn't until we tried to fill them and put them together that disaster ensued. But dang did we laugh. In the end, they tasted delicious, even though they looked like the four year old did them all, it was certainly me trying to salvage something and pretty much had an #epicfail. Good thing I don't have to take these to the fair and be judged.  I think they weren't even ribbon worthy to look at, but to drink were top notch! 

I never in a million years thought I'd be so excited to see a port a pot show up in my front yard. Starting in 2017 with plans, we got ghosted by a contractors who got us to the drawing stages, a second who came and looked and promised to get started by summer who never responded and by a third who turned us down because of workload. Brian from Burden was recommended by my co-worker Joann. Called in Oct 2020- said couldn’t come over to discuss until Jan 2021 and we thought "here we go again." But when he did make it over, he promised he could make this backyard oasis we wanted come true. Skeptical and being burned by so many others I refused to get my hopes up! In our discussions leading up to Thanksgiving he said that we would know it would begin when the port a potty arrive- “shits about to get real” kids had NO idea either so couldn't wait to see their faces when they got home from school. Couldn't be more excited to see the pavers leave. Then they brought in the cool machine that threw stone down before cementing.