January 2023

I've sat around WAY too long trying to come up with the perfect phrase to kick of the blog this year. I Googled what rhymed with three. I scoured the internet for clever titles. I even asked my social media class for ideas. Here are a few ideas I'd still chewing on...

"Carefree in 2023"

"All about me in 2023"

"Long time no see...Let's get together in 2023"

"Stamped with a guarantee for 2023"

Do any of these tickle your fancy? Would love to hear your feedback if anyone is even reading this, which would be your favorite. Next month I'll pick one, but if I keep waiting to decide on the perfect title/phrase, another year will go by with no blog.  Can't have that happening! So here we go. It's like having a baby and leaving the hospital without a name. Just keep moving forward...the name will come with what feels right. 

Welcome to 2023. Those who know me well, know that 2022 was bound to be amazing since #22 has been my favorite number for like, well forever. It was a fabulous year, but I didn't document any on the blog.  Facebook will have memories, but no blog posts to boost those memories. 

We kicked off 2023 at the lake house at the Dentinger Christmas! Mom got us all matching "Cheers" shirts since we were going to celebrate Christmas on New Years Day. One of the best parts is that no one had to go to school Monday so we got to ease back into normal structure of life. Isaac and Olivia had to go back to school Tuesday, but Jeremy and I still have 3 more weeks off until we needed to return to ONU. So we had planned for so many 'wants' on our things-to-do list, we knew if we got half of them done, we'd be in good shape. 

The first thing we kicked off the new year with is picking out new furniture and paint and redoing our living room area. Jeremy and I headed over to Lehmans in Delphos to take a look at their selection. Two hours later, we came home with a new cavas print, couch, love seat and a swivel chair. Jeremy dropped me off at Lowes to get paint. There was so much to paint and we needed to head out the next morning early for a swim meet in Elkhart, Indiana. 

Sports are a huge part of every weekend! I'm just going to do a summary of what the month brought for sports each month or the entire paragraph. 

Basketball

Isaac (and Jeremy the coach) had basketball games on every Saturday this month. They are having a pretty good season. While they did lose a few games, overall they have a great team and seem to be getting along great. Unfortunately because of the vacation we already had booked, they missed two Saturdays in a row. 

Swim

Jan. 7- USA Mako Invite, Elkhart: GIRLS only weekend

I should have looked before the night before how far from home this was...but wow, how much fun. We signed up for this meet to see competition outside of Ohio as this was a huge Midwest meet (yet drivable!) with amazing facilities and phenomenal swimmers (is it OK to get a 10-year old swimmer signature now so when we see them at the Olympics in eight years I can say she swam against them? )

Anyhow, Olivia has #goals. One of the only thing she asked for for Christmas was a speed suit. She got a black and a green one. We joked that it’s the Slytherin colors and also the same colors as her dance studio that she also loves so much. not sure it was a speed suit or the placebo effect, but will take it! She was hoping to make it to zones in at least two events. Right now she is up to 4 and looking for at least two more by season’s end.

Day 1:

IM: 6/57 Qualified for Zones

50 breaststroke: 6/78 dropped time /already qualified for Zones

50 fly: 12/71 and but guessing a tad tired

Day2:

100 breaststroke: 6/57 added time but already qualified for Zones in this event

100 fly (grueling as you can see by how many people did it) 5/23 and 1 second from qualifying from Zones

50 free: 4/100 - heat winner- qualified for Zones seeded 12 and came to swim!!!

Jan. 28- YMCA Findlay

I had to work in the morning at the Dicke Scholarship Day, so I was a bit late getting there, but eventually made it to see both kiddos swim like champions!

Isaac swam 

200 freestyle: Finished 3rd/ dropped time/ 2:39.87
200 IM Relay: Finished 2nd/2:35.16
50 freestyle: Finished 3rd/30:59
50 backstroke: Finished 3rd/dropped time/ 38.75

Olivia swam

IM: Finished 1st/dropped time/ 1:20.25
50 freestyle: Finished 1st/31.62
50 fly: Finished 1st/39.13
50 backstroke: Finished 1st/dropped time 37.79

Tumbling 

Olivia starting tumbling this fall at the Flip Training Center at the mall. They changed their classes for the new year. Olivia has been placed in the intermediate plus class. This class is working on roundoffs and back tucks on a spring floor. By the end of the month, the teachers approached me and asked to move her up to the advanced class in February. She will continue to work on back tucks on a hard floor and also start working on full layouts. Here is a video of how she is progressing. 

J-term also began Jan. 5-20. Sounded like a great idea when I signed up to teach both Principles of Social Media and Principles of Public Relations. Every day we had class online. While there wasn't a particular time they had to log on, there was something due everyday since essentially this is a 16-week class condensed to 20 days. Overall it wasn't bad until I got on the cruise ship. I spent some of my days on islands finding coffee shops with internet to make sure I could keep up at all hours of the day.  I also spend many hours at night burning up all 250 minutes of internet I bought for the ship so I could grade assignments and get them up in a timely manner. 

The highlight of the month was certainly the family Eastern Caribbean cruise on the NCL Encore. We planned this out with the kiddos and maw and paw. It was the kiddos third cruise and they couldn't wait to go since the ship was so amazing. It had a waterslides, a rope course, and a putt putt course. We got to visit Dominican Republic, Tortola, St. Thomas, and NCL's private island Great Stirrup Cay. We had beautiful weather and perfect days at Sea. When we got home we were lucky enough to fly standby and get home from the trip by the time we would have been taking off from Orlando to come home. Because it was a Saturday to Saturday cruise it was nice to have Sunday to do all the laundry and get back in the groove of things before starting the spring semester at ONU Monday, January 23.  

Finally, overall we have had a pretty typically January.  Snow and freezing temperatures. We didn't have school (Elida or ONU) Wednesday, Jan. 25 and no Elida Friday, Jan. 27 because we were cold and had snow and drifting. Olivia made a snowman and I thought I'd put the picture here to remember.