Hanging with celebs!

10-15-08: Sheila Hodgkin, Development Officer, made it in the news this AM with her selection in an Oprah-sponsored women's leadership contest. You can read all about it in the San Bernardino Sun online article.

It mentioned her work with Andre Agassi, and here are some pictures from our recent trip to his gala for his schools.

Here's Sheila, hard at work with Andre, telling him how his school can benefit from having exergaming in it. Notice the XRTZ business card in his hand...great job, Sheila!

Also got to meet some other celebs there, like Dr. Knowlton here with David Foster....
Sheila and Judy Peterson (wife of COO Joel Peterson) with Nick Cannon and Mariah!
Sheryl Crow was very nice...
I was able to get in one picture with Steffi, one of my fave female tennis players. Kim had a poster of Agassi from his long-haired playing days and was able to get both Andre and Steffi to autograph it for her. Go Kim!
Coach K was very friendly, shaking our hands and asking our names. I asked him how it was dealing with all of those NBA-sized egos and he said it wasn't hard at all because, "...they really wanted it (the gold)."
This was for Kim's 3 sons, who love watching Emeril on TV.

Pathfinders hike 10 miles

10-4-08: The Pathfinders completed their 10-mile hike as part of their work on their Hiking Award today at Silverwood Lake. It was a very cool day (in the 50's) with a brisk wind and fog/low clouds coming in and out. Perfect hiking weather on the Pacific Cost Trail!

After playing for the Adventurer's church song service at camp, Thomas, Pastor John (on mtn. bike) and I chased after the Pathfinder group which had left over an hour ago. After getting lost and going back and forth, we finally got on the right trail. Here, Pastor John is navigating a tough single track on his mtn. bike with flip flops!
Thomas gives Pastor John a boost on the trail.
We finally made it to the Pacific Coast Trail, a trail that stretches from Mexico to Canada! Is that Pastor John on a mtn. bike there at the left? (Mtn. bikes are not allowed on the PCT.) You can see the trail following the side of this ridge about Silverwood Lake on the right. Somewhere miles ahead were the Pathfinders, so off we went.
Finally catching up to them after 3 hours, we take a break. Here Jake is giving some of his water to Bella.
Summer passes out some goodies to her friends?
A beautiful view of Silverwood Lake on the left.

Part of the Pathfinder group pauses for a picture.Treking along the single track of the Pacific Coast Trail.

Finally making it back to camp, some came crawling in while Pathfinder Director Mike passes out water to the weary.Next up in Nov: our final 15-mile hike at Joshua Tree National Park (in the desert).

Bonding at Hanger 18

9-27-08: Part bonding, part having a fun outing, Coach Matt brings the Age Group swimmers to Hanger 18, a rock climbing gym. It's quite the workout, and the kids (and some parents) and coaches had a blast scaling the walls.
Here's Summer trying several different routes....rated in the 5.6 range.
This was her hardest route she had to navigate...a bit too far apart for her but she gave it her best shot.


The RST Age Group team with Coachs Audy (left) and Matt (right) hanging behind.

RST Awards

9-28-08: This Sunday, Summer's swim team, the Redlands Swim Team, had their annual awards banquet at the Redlands Bowl. Over 300 people showed up for this event. It's a time when various awards are given to the swimmers for various outstanding achievements and records set during the past swim season.

In Summer's division, the B+ division (which she just promoted out of), she receives the "Iron Woman" award by Coach Audy and Coach Vicky. This represents her hard work and never giving up in practice.
Summer and some of her other friends also received cool RST swag for setting Southern California Reportable Times. Summer set this record in her 100 butterfly event.

Choi's new food processor

9-27-08: Pastor John wanted to try out their new food processor, so we saved Nanci the work of chopping up the onions. Here we are doing our best Vanna White impersonation.
We were amazed at how fast and finely this thing chopped up the onions!

Nanci inspects our handiwork and says, "Wow, look at all those pieces I have to wash now...I could've done that with just a knife and cutting board to clean up!"
We also made good work on some purple cabbage.
We sent Nanci looking for more things for us to chop up...but alas, she couldn't find anything else.
While waiting for the others to get there, we have a mini Rock Paper Scissor tournament. Here Summer can be seen beating Pastor John.

Dryland workout in Age Group

10-1-08: With the new season, Summer and a bunch of her teammates were promoted up to the "Age Group" division (from B+). That now includes dry land exercises before swimming on T and Th. Here are a couple of shots of her doing their exercises.

"Come on, Summer, throw that medicine ball harder!"
Fellow ballerina Victoria and Summer show excellent posture in this squat.
High-stepping it in 90-deg heat! Man, they can't wait to get into the cool water.
Making killer abs and core on land makes them faster in the water.
Summer & Jenny get down to do push-ups because they dropped their medicine ball.
Bands are a key part of their dry land workout.
Some can't help to use the bands for other purposes. "Pow!" "Ouch!"
Hooded Jenny wants to get in the water now!

RST home meet

9-19-08: Summer's swim team, the Redlands Swim Team, hosts our first meet of the short-course season. Here are a few shots from her first short-course meet as an 11 year old.

In her first event, the 200 yd breast stroke, she has to go up against teammate Helena, who as you can see, is a bit bigger than Summer! While Helena eventually pulled away from her, shena did a great job in pulling Summer to reach a PR in this event, coming in 2nd.
Doing her best to keep up with Helena...
Keri writing her heat and lane assignments on her hand.
Summer wears her team tattoo proudly.
Summer on her first 11-12 y/o relay team. This was for a freestyle relay.