Happy 2015!

Have a Hap-Hap-Happy new year!

Surely you fans of Rudolph's Shiny New Year will appreciate this:



Happy Nineteen-Wonderful to you all! :)

Status Report 2014

We will leave this up top through the holidays as regular updates continue below. Merry Christmas!

2014 Christmas Card

Here is our 2014 Christmas card. Thank you to the talented and beloved Miss Molly Ribnik for taking the cover shot and some of the beautiful pics on the back at my parents' home on their 50th wedding anniversary.

Front


Back


WHO'S ON THE BACK???
Here's a helpful guide to the people and places pictured on the back of the card!


1. Maren, Chris Voelz (Terri's brother), Terri, Darryl Voelz (Terri's dad), Derek, Bonnie Voelz (Terri's mom), Deacon. Photo by Molly Ribnik, 9/5/14.

2. Ethan Oyog (our nephew), Maren, Terri, Deacon, Darlene Alff (Derek's mom), Jana Oyog (Derek's sister), Phillip Oyog (our brother-in-law), Elias Oyog (our nephew), Wendell Alff (Derek's dad), and Derek. 11/28/14, Black Friday, our front yard.

3. Terri, Deacon, Maren and Derek "falling" backward into the Grand Canyon. 7/15/14

4. Terri and Maren on Star Wars Day, 5/4/14.

5. Jenny Matheny and Terri at the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank, 7/31/14. Jenny lives in Connecticut and is Terri's stem cell donor! And she's a really, really nice person, too!

6. Derek, aka "Glam Luke," from the video featured during our Taco & Talent Night performance of "The Power Converter Song," 1/31/14. Special thanks to Steve Kwant for all the production and post production services to achieve just the right amount of total ridiculousness.

7. Deacon, Uncle Chris, and Maren. Photo by Molly Ribnik, 9/5/14.

8. Sarah Bauer, Mark Weindorf, Terri, Derek, and Mike Robinson of the 'rents band perform "Take Me Home, Country Roads" at the St. Paul's Fall Festival, 10/18/14.

9. Derek and Terri with the fabulous Molly Ribnik at her high school graduation, 5/29/14.

Wishing everyone a VERY Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Thanksgiving Talent Show Videos!

Well... I'm working on a larger post containing pics from Thanksgiving. But I've also been editing videos of the Talent Show, which I've uploaded to YouTube...

Here they are!

Derek puts the turkey in the fryer!


David plays "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" on guitar!


Deacon and Jason share an urgent warning regarding alien conspiracies.


Maren plays a trombone medley!


Deacon performs his original composition, "Age of the Rancors," on piano.


Carol translates Jason's Mandarin Chinese sentences...


Derek and Jana discuss their shared medical condition.


The kids explore experimental theatre with "Where's My Pizza?"


A hard-hitting, devastating piece about old people who resent their grandkids.


These are all available on my Voelzavision Studios YouTube channel!

Pics to come soon...

The Force Awakens teaser trailer!

Hello! We had a great Thanksgiving, and I'll have that posted soon. Until then, here's a pic Derek took at the El Capitan in Hollywood, on the morning of Black Friday, right before the 7:00 a.m. big-screen debut of the Star Wars - Episode 7: The Force Awakens teaser trailer!



Here's me in the bottom right corner:


It was great to see it on the big screen with our fellow SW geeks. The El Capitan showed it twice, back to back - once in 2D and once in 3D. The movie it preceded was Big Hero 6, which we'd already seen, so we bolted right after the SW trailers. When Derek bought the tickets online, every screening was nearly a sellout! A big draw for Star Wars fans, for sure!

And here is the teaser!

2014-2015 School Pictures!

The school pics have arrived! Here are my babies:

Maren, Grade 5


Deacon, Grade 7


Just for fun... I ran across MY 7th grade pic recently. All I can say is... YIIIIIKES! I think my kids are destined for much better "awkward years" than I had, that's for sure.

Maren is HOME from Catalina

Two reasons to celebrate!

Maren has arrived home from her three-day science camp in Catalina. Hungry for Del Taco, but otherwise no worse for wear.



Also pictured: Derek's birthday present from my parents. The Sony DSC-RX10 era has begun!!



How camera technology has advanced since we got the 5 megapixel F707 in 2001!! Now it's 20.2 megapixels and on wifi and integrated with our smartphones and will transfer files to all your devices instantly through thin air... and there's something that can happen if you just touch it with your phone, I'm not sure what, but it's all very sci-fi to us at this point. Will be fun navigating this learning curve!

Oh, and welcome home, Maren! :)

Trunk or Treat 2014!

The crazy month of October continues with Trunk or Treat, which was tonight!

This year's trunk:


Me, Health Professional


Dr. Derek


We were prepared for anything; fortunately, all of the trunk-or-treaters we screened were perfectly healthy. They just needed more candy from the bucket!


Where are our kids?? They didn't wear their costumes and ran around the campus all evening. We barely saw them... so no pics of them this time!

Fall Festival 2014!

We all had a great time at Fall Festival on Saturday, October 18th. Here's a recap!

The 'rents performed twice - at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM.






For a full report with pics and video, visit The 'rents Band Blog!

The Costume Contest was at high noon. Here's Maren, as Food Network chef/personality Guy Fieri!






They always give a boy and girl award for each class. The judges thought Maren was a boy, so she got the boy award! Here she is with girl winner Micaela, as Charlie Chaplin!


This year, Deacon was a stick of dynamite. He and Derek worked hard to build this huge costume, which featured a retracting fuse and puff of smoke (engineered using compressed air, a straw, and baby powder)!




Here's a short video of the kids and costumes!


Next on the schedule was the Crusader Band, who performed American Salute Medley, Rock Around the Clock, and Polka.


Deacon and Eddie on percussion...


Maren on trombone!






Deacon played his drum kit on Rock Around the Clock and Polka.


Here's a video of all three songs!


The Basket Raffle is always a popular event...


This year, Deacon's 7th grade class basket theme was MINECRAFT! It was a popular basket!!


Derek takes a break from guitar playing and last-second costume building. I believe this is a tri-tip sandwich with jalapenos.


It was great to have Grammie with us for the day... here she is with Deacon for a celebratory dinner at Outback, Saturday evening!


So Fall Festival 2014 is in the books. Next up: Trunk or Treat this Friday! October is moving along! :)

Loma Prieta Earthquake: 25 years ago TODAY!

I can't BELIEVE it has been 25 years since this happened!!

One thing hasn't changed: the Giants are in the World Series! Here's a quick video of the big moment on national TV:



A still from my video: the view from my window, the sun setting over the ocean on October 17th, right after the quake.


Here's my edited video:

Throwback Thursday - Costume Craziness: R2-D2 & C-3PO!

I've been posting these on Thursdays on Twitter & Instagram, so here's one for the AFB.

Deacon and Maren in 2006. DISCLAIMER: the C-3PO costume was not homemade!

Donny & Marie!

Just a quick update as I realized I hadn't yet blogged our GROOVY 20th Anniversary trip to Las Vegas to see DONNY & MARIE!


I never missed their TV show way back when...


The whole trip was great, starting with fine dining at Arby's in Hesperia, CA on September 26th. From the Instagram files:




Were sad to leave Arby's for Vegas, but the hotel didn't disappoint.


September 27th... we couldn't take pics of the show itself, but here we are with an advertisement for the fabulous DONNY & MARIE!


I was so inspired... was ready to don a wig and sing Paper Roses!


All kidding aside, the show was so much fun - genuinely witty, a FABULOUS backup band, and of course Donny & Marie themselves are amazing, versatile singers and entertainers. WOW. We sat pretty close to the stage, and -what a show!


The next day, we headed back to Burbank via I-15. Stopped for lunch in Baker, CA - the Gateway to Death Valley, home of the World's Tallest Thermometer!


I think I blogged about this briefly on one of our summer vacation posts - here. It was 115 degrees that day!

The World's Tallest Thermometer has a fascinating history, and we got to hear it firsthand from the daughter of the man who built it: Willis Herron! Sadly, he passed away in 2007. But his whole family repaired the thermometer and maintains it today. Here we are with his daughter LaRae Harguess and a picture of her parents.


It was re-activated on July 10, 2014 - the 101st anniversary of the hottest day ever recorded on Earth - 134 degrees in Death Valley, CA! We drove by it on July 13th, not knowing it had just been re-opened.

A postcard from the awesome Temp 134 gift shop:


This is a MUST-SEE when you're on the road to Las Vegas. We got some great souvenirs and met some really nice people! A great way to end a fabulous trip.

The Right Fit!

So some of you know we've been waiting many months to buy a car - specifically, a yellow 2015 Honda Fit. We've been working with an auto-buying service called Autoland, through our credit union, and the yellow Fits have been trickling into the US very slowly... but last week, a yellow Fit showed up in southern CA, and Aaron snagged it for us. It arrived yesterday at Derek's office!

Derek and I with THE FIT!


Here we are with Aaron, the Autoland consultant/car finding guru!


...and with Saul, our loan officer!! Such a nice guy, he makes you want to go get a loan, for anything.


Of course, we couldn't celebrate the new car without acknowledging the faithful, reliable service of the car it's replacing, the 1998 Honda Accord, previously owned by Derek's parents.


Kids in the Accord, 2008.


We sold the Accord at CarMax, where it got HIT IN ITS PARKING SPACE right after they did the appraisal. Fortunately, the nice people at CarMax honored their appraisal despite the damage. Crazy!!

We're thankful for our newest Honda, and are looking forward to putting tons of miles on it!