First video of downhill run with Roxy!

6-13-09: First video of Roxy running downhill with her friend, Nabi, and owner Pastor John.

MaMiMe 2009 is completed!

5-25-09: We just finished up another MaMiMe event and it went over very well! Check out the pixs as we honored our moms and kids a bit late. ;-)

BTW, some in our party did NOT want any video of our performance posted....so I'm honoring their wishes. If you REALLY wanted to see the performances, e-mail me directly and we can figure something out. ;-)

Thanks to the Makowskis for opening up their house for the annual 1-day event for the moms.

Enjoy!

Calvary09: Behind the scenes

5-9-09: Last night, we had our Calvary cast party and showed the following video clip, as well as the DVD for performance #3 (Sabbath, 2nd service). If you weren't able to make it, enjoy!

For this "Behind the scenes" video, I would like to thank Pastor Carmon for videoing Jesus and his disciples outside, and for Natalie and Jenny for doing all the "interviews" at the end of the video. Great job, girls!

Foxy Roxy's 1st visitors

3-25-09 Foxy Roxy had her first visitors, the Choi family! Soon, we'll have to introduce her to their other family member, Nobi. ;-)

Nathaniel says, "Hey Roxy, wanna meet my doggie, Nobi?"

Roxy seemed pretty calm around all the kids.

She's home!

3-24-09 We welcomed our newest addition today after I picked her up at the vet, where she was spayed this AM. Check out the pixs as she checks out her new home and neighborhood. BTW, the vet techs thought she was part shephard part lab, not chow. Her tongue is definitely pink! LOL!

We're still deciding on a name, but "Foxy Roxy" is the leader right now...we're seeing how it fits her. She does look like a fox in the sun!

Nice to have a dog back in the house...just didn't seem the right.

New dog!

3-24-09: Last Sun., we visited and shelter and found this 1 year old half chow half lab female dog there and fell in love with her. She passed all of the Dog Whisperer's tests for a shelter dog, so we adopted her!

Picking her up today at 4 PM from the vet where she's getting some of her shots, fixed, and chipped, so stay tune for more pixs and vid clips! No name yet...holding off till we have her a few days to see what fits.

3-21-09 Evening piano recital

Summer and her cousins, Jake and Josh, had a piano recital after the hike, so they quickly cleaned up and changed. After playing, they also received their awards, including their trophies for playing in the Inland Empire Piano Festival and getting honors in CM.

Summer also was one of 8 of Helen's students who earned Convention honors as well. Helen said that 5% of the 250,000 piano students in CA who do CM earn Convention honors, so that was a nice honor. (We can't go to play in Convention since it's up in Northern CA.)

They all did a great job tonight!

3-21-09 Another busy Saturday afternoon!

The weather was gorgeous today, again, so we decided to take advantage of it and go for a hike in the hills of Loma Linda after church today. While there, we had an unexpected surprise of running into the kid's gymnastic teacher from Camp Mivoden last summer, Emily! They happened to see her in the park from afar but were too shy to go up and make sure, so I went up to check and sure enough, it was her! They had a good time chatting and doing a pyramid. (She's down here from WWU for her brother's wedding.)

Busy weekend!

3-15-09 Here I thought it was going to be a calm weekend, but no such luck! LOL! OK, it was a blast, and here are the pixs as proof.

Saturday Sabbath, we taught Sabbath School Juniors, had a potluck/meeting for our Outreach Committee, Easter practice in afternoon, and b-day celebration in evening, including a suspended King of Ping tournament.

Sunday started early, around 7:30 AM, with a hike up Blue Mountain with about 500 other people. Then rushed back down, met some people at XRTZ at noon, then zoomed over to Summer's Honor's piano recital in the afternoon.

Whew! What better way to spend the weekend with family and friends, worshipping and having fun together.

Ready to start the week now. ;-) Hope ya'll had a great weekend, too!

Saturday in pictures:


Sunday in pictures:

RST takes 1st place in Red/White Championship!

3-8-09: Our swim team, Redlands Swim Team (RST), hosted the Red/White Championship for the Easter Section which we belong to. Almost 900 swimmers converged on our 2 pools over this weekend.

Out of all the teams there, RST took 1st place with almost 2,000 points! Congrats to all the swimmers, parents, volunteers, and coaches for making this meet a success!

Summer, Melissa, & Michelle hanging out between their events.


The girls holding RST's 1st place trophy!


The traditional post-meet glycogen replenishing trip to Souplantation...

Pathfinders make meal @ Ronnie's house

3-7-09: The Pathfinders, led by Directors Mike and Ellen, organized the Pathfinders into 2 groups: 1 made spaghetti at the Ronald McDonald House, while the other group made salad and cupcakes at the church. The church group then brought their food over to the Ronald McD's house for the families to enjoy. (The Ronald McD's house is special housing for families who have kids in the Children's Hosp. across from the street.)

They all had a great time cooking and playing afterwards in the backyard! Great community service outreach activity! All the kids did great helping to cook the meal.

Sorry, I didn't have any pictures from the church--I was with the "house group".

Sabbath afternoon hike

2-28-09: It's a gorgeous winter day in Loma Linda, CA, and the kids and dogs want to go out and run around in nature, so off we went to the local park to hike in the hills. A great way to spend the Sabbath afternoon with family and friends.

We ended back at the park and sang some songs with our featured guitar players, "3 Shades of Heaven", and then after sunset, headed to Souplantation for dinner! Nice end to the Sabbath.

Sat. night craziness!

2-21-09: After Easter play practice, the kids wanted to get together, so we had a "short" get together (some of the kids are going tubing tomorrow with Adventurers, while others have a swim meet!).

Here are some of the crazy stuff that we did at the Makowskis after sundown worship. These kids have endless energy!

Pathfinders hit the slopes!

2-15-09: The Azure Hills Pathfinders hit the slopes of Snow Summit for a day of skiing and snowboarding. Although a bit crowded because it was a holiday weekend, and because we were in between storms, the snow, weather, and most of all, the friends were great! Check out the videoclip. Sorry I didn't get everyone in there (like the Choi family), and we're glad that Moriah, who had a couple of crashes on her first run and spent time with first aid and the ER, is fine.

Newest all-girl trio!

2-14-09: Watch out Dixie Chicks, you have another all-girl trio coming out of Azure Hills! Check out this video clip of Hannah (recorder), Gaby (trumpet), and Chloe (violin) jam as they practice for their debut in church in a couple of weeks.

AU Alum get-together

2-8-09 Braving cold drizzle, about 100 SoCal AU Alum gathered together at the Spaghetti Factory in Riverside to catch up on the news from AU. It was great to see our friends from AU--Alumni Director Tami, Recruiter Chris (not pictured), VP Faehner, and President Andreason.

Great meal and great fellowship!

IE Piano Competition

2-8-09: Summer, her cousins Josh and Jake, and some swim teammates, all played in the Inland Empire Piano Festival. They played before 2 judges and awards were given. While she didn't win any awards, she did very well and we were all proud of her. It's very high pressure, and a great experience, sort of like swimming in a competition when everyone is watching and you're being judged!

Congrats to Jake and Josh for getting "honorable mention" in the duet division. You can see a clip of their piece here. I haven't converted Summer's solo and duet yet, but will upload it here when I do.

Dee celebrates his 50-something b-day!

2-7-09: Dee "The Sultan of Slam" Elias celebrated his 50-something b-day by inviting a few close families out for his fave treat, Cherry on Top yogurt. It was very yummy and a new way to get yogurt--we can see why it's his fave!

While the adults had a nice time chatting in the warm yogurt parlor, I had the good fortune of bringing all the kids outside in the cold drizzly rain to play games (or they would've torn the inside apart! LOL!)

We had fun playing all kinds of games, and fortunately, no one ran off and got lost. Too bad I didn't take a picture of the security guy asking us not to play on the lamp post--I did ask if he had handcuffs and would he handcuff one of the kids, but he just smiled and walked away.

New fence for future dogs

1-28-09: In order to get new dogs, we had to replace our broken fence (Ozzy was too old to try and get out of the backyard). Thanks to our 3 neighbors sharing the cost and AAA home insurance, we were able to get a vinyl fence! No more staining and sealing--yeah!!!

Pathfinder Gamenight!

1-24-09 What fun we had at Pathfinder Game Night! After a short vespers, we made cookies and played games! Directors Mike and Ellen are doing a great job with our Pathfinders.