Stamped With A Guarantee To Be Busy In 2023: February

Well there you have it. With some modification and input from my readers, we have settled upon the theme of the blogs this year: 

Stamped With A Guarantee To Be Busy In 2023

Thank you to all who sent notes of encouragement and actually read the monthly update. It reminds me of writing a Christmas card. Trying to recall all the highlights, and maybe a few of the things we'd like to forget. Anyone who knows the Agozzinos knows we are BUSY, yes all caps. This theme seems poetic. 

The month kicked off with Isaac's bi-annual orthodontist  appointment. He's had a built in retainer on the top of his mouth for around a year now to help with the spacing since he had six teeth removed in June. I was anxious to hear when we would start discussing braces. Turns out, not this appointment. But instead in July when we go back, his mouth would have time to adjust to the spacer and we'll proceed from there. Isaac was relieved. 

Swim Review for February 

🐠Feb. 4- USA meet at St. Xavier🐠

Olivia and I headed south on I-75 since the boys had a basketball game. Because she swam in the afternoon we got to make our way down in the morning. She continued to amaze me in the pool.  AMAZING competition, with potentially the best 10 year IM swimmer in the nation, Adayaleise Trumpower (1:07.88), Olivia came determined to drop time and improve upon her existing times and maybe break into a legit Zone time in back and fly. I'll just put the picture from Meet Mobile up here so you can see how she dropped time in nearly every event (fly she added +0.01 so do you even count that?) and qualified for Zones in the back!

🐠Feb. 18- YMCA meet at Putnum 🐠

Isaac had Annie practice at one, but we made him go and swim in a relay and the 200 free before leaving. He had an amazing meet and I was angry that we had to leave. Not because I don't want him to go to Annie practice (he LOVES the theatre and those are his people!), but because he was doing so well. 

Isaac:

200 Free: 2:33.29 | 1st place | dropped 6.58 seconds!

200 Medley Relay | 3rd place 

Olivia:

200 Medley Relay | 1st place | 2:57.91

100 IM  | 1st place |  1:21.54

50 Fly |  1st place | 39.10

50 Back | 1st place | 38.60

50 Breaststroke | 1st place | 42.97

Basketball

Because I'm always needing to take Olivia somewhere and Jeremy coaches Isaac's basketball team, I never got to watch my baller all season. On Feb. 4 (while I was at St. X with Olivia) they had their last regular season game. Then Feb. 7 they got to play at the halftime of the varsity basketball game. It wasn't a regular game, but they loved it. Then Feb. 11 (at dance comp) the BYAA tournament action began. They beat their first opponent and got to play again that same day, but unfortunately against another Elida team. Isaac's team was the team who was defeated and his tournament run was over. I know Jeremy was probably super bummed, but when twice-a-week practices came around the next week and they were done, I think he got over it quickly! 

SODC

Dance comp season has begun! Between tumbling, swim and dance prep for this first dance competition at Dance ID in Covington, KY Feb. 11/12, Olivia has lived up to the BUSY theme. She went nearly every night the week prior to work on team dances or her solo. Again, because the boys had b-ball tournament, we had to travel just us girls. If you’re unfamiliar with dance competitions, you typically don't know the schedule until the week before. The competitions typically run Friday night- Sunday. So it's a toss up when you'll be slotted. Luckily for us, Olivia's solo was at 10 a.m. and group dances were at 7 p.m. and thank goodness ALL on Saturday.  Since we were so close to my college friend Sandy's house, I called her up and asked if she'd adopt us for the night. Olivia had to be at the convention center at 8 a.m. so we needed to be close enough that we wouldn't be dead tired from the drive. It was also an amazing excuse to visit and catch up! Olivia and her teammates did great. I must admit, the practice videos had me on edge, but they pulled it off like old pro's. SO FUN. First was her solo, and she admitted that she forgot a tiny part at the beginning (only her, I and the teacher would notice though) but improved until she caught up with her moves. She got iconic platinum, which for this dance comp there is only ultra iconic as a greater level. She walked away with a trophy and was thrilled. Her team dances consist of jazz, hip-hop, lyrical and acro. Here is how they finished, with the ID iconic buzzer (which was freaking amazing as the last dance of the evening!). 

Jazz- iconic platinum, fourth place overall

Hip Hop- iconic platinum, fifth place overall

Lyrical- iconic platinum 

Acro- iconic platinum, ID Icon Buzzer, 🥇first place, trendsetter award

The worst part was the drive home. We left the convention center at 11 p.m. after awards and headed to the parking garage where there was ONE gate to get out. We were on the 2nd floor and it took us 45 minutes to get out of the garage. We tried stopping two places to get something to drink- first one had a line wrapped around the gas station and Taco Bell was closed. OMG.  I called my mom and she talked me home and we pulled into our driveway at 1:50 a.m. 

Speaking of dance, let's talk for a minute about how expensive solo's are. First there is the cost of the choreography and the costume. Then each time she jumps up on that stage for her 2-minute dance, it is roughly $150. There are four comps we will attend this year. If you do math like me, let me save you the time and just tell you that to do a solo is roughly (when all said and done) around $1000 extra dollars. Since we don't do too many fundraisers as a studio and this was all due around the same time, I talked with Olivia about what we could do. We came up with making our infamous cut-out cookies. A couple of things about cut-outs.  One, I know very few who actually enjoy doing them. Two, they take time- think refrigeration overnight and then to roll, cut, bake, frosting. With the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day within the week, I thought it might work to make up a few dozen and ask for a $20 donation in return. I was hoping to make at least 10 dozen to help cover the costs of ingredients and at least one solo fee. Well apparently I underestimated the deliciousness of our cut-outs! Wednesday and Friday I didn't go to work, and instead made cookies from the time Olivia got on the bus until she got home. She did help frosting (her favorite part is working with cake frosting bags), but we sold 29 dozen cut-outs. That's nearly 350 cut out cookies! Good thing we have a double oven. That's not counting the extra folks who just donated because or who donated extra. Olivia and I were THRILLED that she had covered over half of her dance comp solo fee's! Blessed to have such amazing family and friends who support Miss Sassy and her dance adventures. 

In the middle of the month of course we celebrated Valentine’s Day. In typical fashion, Jeremy and I exchanged the same card we have given back and forth to each other since 2006. We love looking back and reading what we've said over the years. Then Isaac got me, Maw and Grandma Barb all carnations with his own money. He could hardly wait to get home from school and give them to us all. 

Super Bowl Sunday. We love watching the last football game of the season, but enjoy the commercials even better. We didn't have a party to attend but our church actually had a party for the first half of the game. The rock wall and gym was also open for the kids to play, so we headed across the street to hang there this year. Brought our covered dish and enjoyed chatting with the new pastor Chip. Kids enjoyed climbing the wall, although Isaac was frustrated because he couldn't get to the top. Afraid of heights. 

 

The end of the month brought an activity-free weekend?! What?! That can't be correct.  Because we haven't been back to my parents for months, we decided to head to Attica and visit the parents, and my 89-year-old granny! Because we did it as surprise, mom already had plans to go visit my brother's family in Delaware on Sunday. So we got to ride along so we could visit. It was the first time Isaac had been to their new home. He got back in the car and said, 'what a great day mom!" My heart is full. After getting back to Lima, we headed over to Maw and Paw's for a birthday party. March 1 is Phil's birthday so they had the family in for dinner and to celebrate Paw's 74th birthday. 🥳 🎂 🎉 

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. 

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