Party for Pina

To continue a tradition which begun a few years ago,in March some of our Jazzercise friends gathered to celebrate

Pina's 5th Jazzer-anniversary!

We enjoyed a delicious brunch L'escale Restaurant in Greenwich.
www.lesacalerestaurant.com

What a beautiful place!

Pina checks out her fancy duds (purchased of course by Star Shopper Angela).

Uh, I think this is Pina's surprised & happy face!


Congratulations Pina and looking forward to many more years of fabulous classes from you!

Jazzercise Hits Rippowam

I had a lot of fun dancing with the cool girls from Rippowam Middle School. We ran a class through the fall and again in this winter.

Here are a few of the posing at our last class and showing some attitude.
These girls can dance!

President's Club Award Luncheon

I had the honoring of traveling to Providence for the Northeast District Meeting to receive the President’s Club Award –Platinum status. This award demonstrates that the Stamford/Norwalk Jazzercise franchise operation is in the top 100 franchises worldwide. Above it's me and the "P's" - Peggy, Pina, and Pam. Well done everyone!!!!

Fun in the Village

After a busy week of work, there's nothing better than hanging out with friends, relaxing and laughing. Saturday, I headed down to Greenwich Village to see a wonderful show staring Paul Stroili,

Paul's one man show, "Straight Up with a Twist", is about a straight guy who knows all the wrong things.


I met a bunch of my friends there for the show. Most of us have shared many years doing community theater together in this area, some sharing the stage with Paul, many years ago.

This made it even more fun to see him in action!

Since we were in the front row (thanks to Paul) OF COURSE, he dragged our two non-theater guys up on stage for the audience participation segment.....That's Paul on the left, with Larry & Ted being very good sports!

http://www.straight-up.com/

After the show we headed over to Cafe Figaro for a great meal, yummy chocolate mousse and hours of conversation.

Another old theater pal, Tom Fagan (now Tom Cleary, as Fagan was already taken in the Actors Union), joined us. Haven't seen Tom in over 20 years so there was plenty of reminiscing about the theater days and catching up to do.

And here's our theater gang....Diana, Joe, Tom, Jura and yours truly!

If you're looking for a good laugh, Paul delivers PLENTY!
Check out "Straight Up with a Twist" . But hurry, because the New York run is limited.....and let me know how you like it!

Think Pink....Dancing for a Good Cause

On January 25th a roomful of enthusiastic pink clad women (and one man!) gathered to dance and sweat for an important cause.

Aren't Pam & Pina pretty in pink?

Classes were team taught (that's me having fun OFF the stage for a change!) and high energy!

Some were veteran customers, and others were brand new. But everyone managed to stay on the right (or was it the left?) foot.

The event was the idea of Peggy Devlin whose sister is battling stage 4 breast cancer. Anyone who knows Peg, knows that she sure can throw a party!

Beth was the co-organizer....and volunteered her home (and her husband and kids) for the event.

Here she is getting in one last routine before she had to head out early to get things ready for the party. I'm pretty sure she took off the pink boa before hitting the kitchen, but you never know!

Amy recruited her husband Jay to come for the fun and he managed to keep up with the ladies (but notice, no boa for Jay!)

Lots of hours were spent in preparation making fabulous gift baskets to raffle at the event and raise more money.

Later we enjoyed delicious food, killer desserts and an endless supply of pink cocktails at Beth's home.

There was plenty of laughter too!

Beth's husband, Larry was our attentive bartender. YES, real men DO drink pink drinks!

Wow... we hardly recognized some of our buddies --- this bunch cleans up well don't they!

Christine Sinclair treated the group to a song...singing I Am Blessed from her latest CD.

And such a fitting song it was....as many of our Jazzercise extended family are blessed to be breast cancer survivors.....including my mother Arlene, Beth's mother, and to those who are winning the battle such as Annette and Tina.

Survivors were recognized with roses and those who have lost the battle were recognized on the beautiful angel wings on the bulletin board at our Center.


Over $5000 was raised that evening and will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation to continue the search for a CURE.

Thank you and God Bless to everyone who made this evening a success!

Happy New Year!

It was a blast to ring in the New Year at the Owczarzak's among lots of friends (Jura & I pose with our champagne toast).

The O's lost just about everything earlier this year in a fire and are still in their temporary rental, so spending this evening with them was extra special. We talked about what REALLY matters in our lives, like our families and amazing friends.

Everything else is just stuff!

MAKE IT A WILD AND FABULOUS YEAR!

More Holiday Cheer....

The Christmas costumes and hats and cookie exchange organized by Eleanor brought lots of cheer into the Center in December.

As you can see we had both reindeer and elves!

For our Holiday Class, Pina, Tressa & Beth and I teamed up to do a New Routine Preview (the first one ever held at our Center)

With Tressa leading the crew, we had a fabulous and fun class. And the feedback on the new routines was great!

Then it was on to Villa Italia for salad and pizza and our Annual Holiday Dinner.
Our friends at Villa Italia were outstanding as always, and no one can even remember what year it was that we started this party, but we know that it has been at least 10 years!

Finally on the family front.....we had a lovely Christmas Eve at our home, a Rzasa Christmas the following Sat, and a Christmas with the Hargraves (again at our house -- that's a lot of cooking in one week!) on Sunday.

But the highlight was of course spending Christmas Day in New Jersey with my brother Tom, his wife Heather and our newest addition to the family Landon. Landon seemed to enjoy his first Christmas.

And Nana DEFINITELY enjoyed it!

Staff Holiday Brunch and December Fun

This year our staff celebrated with a Holiday Brunch. It was a great to spend some social time together and relax.

Beth brought a fun game "Catch Phrase: The Music Edition" ...Pina belts out a tune below.

Tressa's strategy was to "dance" out the songs, mainly any song which is a Jazzercise routine. "I can name that song in four hip shakes!"

Everyone enjoyed their 'Secret Santa' gifts and we still can't agree on whether Secret Santas are supposed to STAY secret or not. Feel free to email me with your vote on this!

Beth's enjoying those mimosas!

On a personal note, I had the chance to go into New York twice to 'get into the spirit' . If you didn't get a chance to see it, the tree at Rockefeller Center was beautiful in the new colored lights.

First I went with some of my Jazzer-buds to see the Alvin Ailey show. WOW! It was fabulous and I will definitely be back to see them again!

Here we are posing at Angela's office. I think my mom's the one behind camera (yikes!) so she's MIA in the picture.
And then again to meet up with my Aunt Carolyn and cousins Mary Ann and Carol who
came in from Virginia for two days of shopping and shows. Uh, guess mom is once again behind the camera in this one (do you see a pattern here?)

We had lunch at Bryant Park and a fun time shopping, including my first visit to the American Girl store.

Of course the snowflakes at Saks were beautiful (above), but i thought our own Christmas tree was just as pretty!

Happy Holidays!