Sunday, November 11, 2007

Escaping the fires & smoke

Oct. 27, 2007: With the fires raging and smoke filling Loma Linda, we decided to head to the ocean to get some fresh air. What better way to relax at the beach, sitting in our natural "porta-potty" reading a good book? (I'm reading "The Caleb Quest", an excellent book!)









The all-girl gang had a great time hanging out at the beach, doing their thing.

Some of us were seeing if we could make the Cirque. Check us out and see if you agree!

Is Carly helping Daddy Dee stay on the pole?

Ok, Holly is still trying to figure it out...
That's more like it, Holly!

The Makowski family shows that they're up for the parts, too!

Go Gaby!!!

Even us Medinas might be able to join, too!
Does Summer's pony tail help balance her out?


For sundown worship, the girls stump us with their skit. Turns out that it was a "fictional" Bible story that could have very well happened!

Summer and Carly are happy because they just finished eating at Spaghetti Factory!

And so ends an afternoon at the beach, a small respite from the smoke-filled Inland Empire.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Nov. 4, '07 Swim Meet hosted by IVGA

Just got back from another swim meet, hosted by Inland Valley Gold Aquatics down in Temecula. RST was the largest team there, and they took most of the top spots in all the events and age categories!

Here's just a short clip of 2 of the races. The first is Summer's 100 yd IM. She is the one in the middle, next to her teammate and friend with the pink goggles, Melissa. There were 2 other RST teammates on Summer's right.

It was a very close race, but Summer's lessons on her freestyle are paying off, as she powered ahead in the freestyle leg (not her strongest stroke!)

The 2nd clip is the 200 Free relay and RST fielded 3 girls' teams! Coach Audy made the teams evenly balanced, so the race was very close. Summer is swimming the final leg on her relay team. Check it out!

Overall, RST did an awesome job, taking most of the top spots in all the events. Go RST!!!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Kimbo turns 41 on Labor Day!

9-2-07 While SoCal has been hit with a heat wave this past week (as well as high humidity), what better way to escape the triple digit weather by going to the beach? That's what we ended up doing with a bunch of friends.

Today was also Kimbo's 41st b-day, so most of the pictures will reflect that. You'll see she rec'd a b-day she won't soon forget. I wonder who's idea it was to rally all these kids to do these diabolical things to her??? Hmmmm...;-)

Our youngest sister, Lesley (aka Leng-bong), Robbie, and their first-born, Sydney, escape the record-setting heat wave in Arizona and come West to the coast as well. I believe it was Sydney's first visit to the beach and the Pacific. I'm sure you can see more pictures of her at the beach on her blog (see link in the side bar).
Thanks to all the umbrellas and EZ Ups that families hauled down to the beach so we could have plenty of shade, though some of us barely spent any time under it (except for lunchtime).
Oh oh, what are these kids up to, hauling away Auntie Kim like that?
Oh no, they buried her alive! And she was all nice and clean, too!
Posing with the buried b-day girl, complete with strategically placed seaweed.
Kim decided to rinse off...so the kids decided to help her! (Were they goaded into it? Naaaahhhh!)
Kim's eldest son, Josh, needed no goading in helping his mom rinse off.
Of all the kids, he was the most relentless...and accurate!
Kim decided to fight fire with fire...or in this case, water with water! Alas, it was to no avail.
The horde of kids were just too great and she had to run for her life.
Hey, Kara is caught here red-handed violating the Geneva code of warefare--you are NOT to attack the photographers!
As you can see by Kimbo's slumped shoulders, she finally gives up fleeing and gives in to her pursuers.
The kids get one last good dousing in before letting her alone.
The rest of the day was spent throwing frisbees, footballs (Diane and Holly had excellent spirals!), and of course, boogie boarding. I unfortunately didn't get too many pictures of those activities because I was busy doing all of the above! Keri, Summer, and I did boogie boarding for the first time and loved it (even though the waves were huge and were pounding us sometimes). We're now going to get our own wetsuits and boards.

Afterwards, we all headed to Kim's favorite restaurant, Maggiano's. Here's our long banquet table. Had to use a cell phone to talk to the others at the other end of the table!
Some of the younger ones, like Carly, were plumb tuckered out...but this nap re-charged her batteries because she was good to go later that evening!
Some, on the otherhand, were wide-awake the whole time, like Malia here.
Javan seems to be beyond naps as well.
Rasheed is happy to receive his butter, specially delivered by the Indian catering service, Punjabi himself!
Afterwards, I took the kids out to play some games with them. Thx to Kevin for helping keep them on the sidewalk (though there's Javan breaking the rule! LOL!)
After the parents came out, all the kids surrounded Auntie Kimbo to sing her Happy B-day.
Then they did a massive group hug with her (spared giving her 41 spankings--I'm getting soft in my old age! Can you imagine what I could've unleashed on her???).
One last group picture with the b-day girl.

And so ends our b-day celebration and part of our Labor Day holiday. Hope you had a cool, fun, and safe one, too!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

B-days galore!

8-29-07 Wow, seems like we've been celebrating a lot of b-days recently. Here are just a few more b-days we have celebrated in the last week or so. Happy b-day to the celebrants! (And I know there are a couple more coming up...;-)
Isabelle is Summer's friend from ballet. She had a pool party at her house for her 13th b-day.
Most, if not all, were from the Isabelle's dance school.
Vicotria and Summer decorate their faces.
From my work, Maria, one of our admin. assistants, celebrates her b-day at Red Robin.
Here are some of our staff from Health Ed. Lynda, the one closest on the left, is my admin. assistant and she keeps me in line. I, of course, am the token male and never in the pictures because I'm always taking them! LOL!
Thanks to Conchita for treating Keri (and us) for her b-day at the Olive Garden. Here Natalie and Summer are taking a picture of me.
Finally, the most recent b-day celebrant is Summer's cousin Josh, who turned 10. Here he is, as usual, surrounded by his "harem".
Even though he's older, he'll always been mommy's little boy. ;-)
Boy, they sure don't know anything about golfing etiquette!Hey Hannah, watch where you poke that putter.
After Josh' party, we had a Zone meeting with my co-founder, Joel, who happened to be celebrating his b-day that same day! So we had a small celebration and they were nice enough to include Keri in it as well. Since he's so busy working at the Zone, maybe with his gift, he can practice his golf game inside the Zone (chipping into the toddler zone, perhaps?)

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Summer & Josh Jam in recital!

8-19-07 Check out their piano recital they played in tonight and then send them an e-mail letting them know what you thought! (Summer: summeralyssa@gmail.com; Josh: coreynkimk@gmail.com).

Sunday, August 12, 2007

A friend's 40th b-day celebration...vrooom!!!

Since turning 40, Thomas's fashion sense has changed appropriately.

8-12-07: Thomas "Rasheed" Makowski turned 40 while at camp. We couldn't just let him celebrate with a "I turned 40" baseball cap! No siree bobby! Tonight was a night full of...testosterone! LOL! He's a car lover, so what better way then to celebrate with race cars? No, not hot wheels, but the REAL thing! Check it out!

Wow, what a nice present from Vivian! She sold the girls, herself, and the house to buy this $240,000 car for him. (J/K!)

We bought a sweet potato pie at Mommie Helen's and here's Michelle's flip flop next to Shaq's shoe! (His fave pie is sweet potato pie and has them overnighted to FL all the time.) The girls were excited that their picture will be on the celeb wall behind them.

Birthday boy!

After getting rides around the area in the car, we went to an indoor go cart place where the cars go up to 40 MPH. They are fast! (Ok, not quite as fast as the Lambo). We had to wear hoods that made us look like ninjas.

Two ninja bro-in-laws...

Sitting in pit row, getting ready to go on the track.

Wow, the Elias's are competitors! While Holly kicked the dad's butts at camp, Dee mopped up here in the racing. It was a blast! The other winners are Mike S. and Ed D.

Here's the gang of racers. Wild bunch!!!

Can you believe I'm sitting and eventually, driving a car that is worth more than many people's houses?

The b-day boy at Pole Position with the gang behind the sweet ride. Happy b-day Rasheed!!!