I'm home now.

Well we flew into San Jose on time and landed safely. After collecting our suitcases and instruments we loaded our stuff in to the trailer and bus. Cecil Rasor and David Lara came 

and picked us up. 

We are home now and I wanted to post for the last time. I hope you enjoyed the blog and keeping up with our schedule. It was fun and the kids had fun and are little tired. We are back to our regular school schedule... Uh! Did I say school? ; ) Take care and God bless.

Hasta la proxima vez. Adios!

Joshua Rivera

Music Director 

Next Year...Well here's a hint. It's warm and surrounded by water.

It Bye Day! Sniff Sniff

Here I am sitting in the lobby of our hotel. I'm sitting with Amanda and Alicia. Its quiet and almost all of us left for the Airport. 

Alicia:hey guys it was fun!!!! =) go to chicago!!!!

Amanda: going back to school, less then 30 days til graduation! YAY!!!! il miss you mr. rivera!!! =]

Our Shuttle is here. : (

Ciao y Hasta pronto!

Josh

Six Flags Day Pics

Six Flags

Hello from Six Flags Great America!!! Mr. Z and I found an Internet Cafe with free WiFi and Internet access. So I just wanted to let you all know that we are safe and having a blast. The kids voted to leave alittle early to have dinner at Olive Garden. (Nice Choice!)

Our performance went really well. The Event Coordinator was really happy with our group and enjoyed our music. They were really accomidating because we were running abit late. I'll post some fun pictures up later.

I have two big thanks.

Thank You Six Flags for being helpful and friendly.

AND

Thanks Oceanaires for keeping us altogether when the wind started to blow.

It's a beautiful day and not to cold. I'm starting to get used to this state. Someone said to me that you have to experience winter here to really see if you like it. I guess I'll have to come back.

Tomorrow is our "travel home" day. Keep us in your prayers and we look forward to coming home to our love ones.

Hasta entonces!

-J

Hinsdale Fil-Am SDA Church

In the afternoon we drove over to Hinsdale and joined the Pathfinder for an afternoon program. Oceanaires sang six songs four at the beginning and two at the end. Westwinds supported us by watching us. After singing the church surprised us with a dinner potluck. It was delicious. Kyle Botabara's father was the pastor of the church when when they lived in Illinois.

Rockford SDA Church

Here some pics of our trip to Rockford. The church was super friendly and kind. I was greeted at the door by multiple members. It is so good to know we still have churches who care about their visitors. Alyssa Fitting gave the children story followed by the Westwinds and Oceanaires. Lou Fitting (Alyssa's dad and our boys dean) was the Pastor of Rockford so it was a nice reunion for Alyssa. The church then gave us a great potluck which we eat until we were stuffed.

A Huge "thank-you" to Dean Lou for setting up this concert.

Happy Sabbath!

We are off to Rockford SDA Church and Hinsdale Fil-Am SDA Church. We get our tour bus back today! We are waiting for it to arrive. Mr. Z gave our worship this morning to get all on the right track. I hope to write later on. It's hard to believe that this trip is rapidly coming to an end.

Feliz Sabado!

Blue Line to the Red Line...

Here's some pics of our CTA experience.

-Josh

Fun Stuff

Having fun around town. 

Adler Planetarium

This morning we had a sleep in day. We wanted to give the kids a break from the schedule we were keeping. We rode Chicago's public transportation (CTA Trains and Buses). We divided the kids by rooms and put a sponsor in charge of them. We all stood in groups in front of the doors and when the doors opened we shuffled the kids in then the sponsors looked at each other for the ok and walked in. Success! We made it without loosing any one. The kids did really well. I was proud of them. : ) 

Once we got off the train we walked to the Adler Planetarium (in the rain!) Paco Jimenez drove the rental van to the planetarium and got all the prep work done for us so when we got there walked in set up and performed. It went well. Herb Dunn came up and told me that a woman in the audience told him that he was happy to hear us sing two Christian songs (I Want to Walk... and In the Beginning was the Word). 

The kids walked around and checked out the exhibits which were really interesting. We all lined up at 3:00 pm for an Imax movie about space. (Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, it put alot of the kids and sponsors to sleep). : ) I was fighting sleep myself.

P.S. Check out my music stand.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Last night we went to see Mary Poppins at the (Cadillac) Palace Theater. The show was awesome!

The staging was brilliant and the singing was amazing! Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures inside the theater. I'll have to see if the kids have pictures of the place. I'll which I'll post later. The Walkers and Shakespeares arrived late last night. They'll be joining us for the rest of the time.

Thank you Mr. Z for the pics. 

Coming Soon Mary Poppins....

MBA at AU

It sure was a pleasure to see a number of my MBA friends here at Andrews University. I was able to watch the Oceanaires and Westwind's concert yesterday at the Howard Performing Art Center and it was an awesome performance. I didn't expect them to play Smooth by Santana but it was really good. I hope that everyone in MBA is doing good and I can't wait to see most of you at your graduation!

-Jeffrey Ypon Veloso MBA '08

Westwinds Band clinic with Claudio Gonzalez D.M.A

Clinic with Dr. Stephen Zork

Music clinics @ Andrews University

This morning the each music group had a clinic with a clinician at Andrews. I spent the majority of the time with Westwinds under the clinician Dr. Claudio Gonzalez. Dr. Gonzalez (http://www.andrews.edu/cas/music/faculty/gonzalez_claudio.html) worked with their intonation (micro tuning), sensing each other rhythmically and  taught the band kids about letting go and enjoy making music. 

I was able to walk in on the last part of the Oceanaires clinic and was blown away by the sound they were producing with Mr. Stephen Zork

 (www.andrews.edu/cas/music/faculty/zork_stephen.html).

It was nice to sit back and listen for once and enjoy their sound. Mr. Zork complemented them and gave some great singing techniques.

Oceanaires reaction...

Ernest Ly enjoyed the Oceanaires' morning activity, which was a choir clinic with Mr. Stephen Zork. "He was good at explaining and teaching techniques. They were simple adjustments that enhanced our voices, and enriched our sound."

Annemarie Gregory agrees: "We were all tired this morning, and our teacher had such an enjoyable energy. He made us laugh, he stretched our singing 'sound'. It rolled around the room! He was creative and we were comfortable with him. He was bombtastic!"

Howard Performing Arts Center

We had the wonderful opportunity of performing for Andrews University in their amazing concert hall. The kids did great! Here are some of the kids' reactions...

Vicky Hsiao says: "The opportunity to sing in the Performance Center was incredible, because the idea of sharing our musical abilities with other people was really inspiring. Being able to sing somewhere with amazing acoustics gave us a great mindset-we knew we had to perform to perfection."

"...." and that is Namiko Nagayama, appearantly unable to say anything. She is still speechless after sharing this special experience with her other Westwinds friends. "My jaw is...still on the floor," she said. Performing with a fuller sound was fun for all of us.

The Oak Hill Cemetery

We stopped at the Oak Hill Cemetery to look for the grave sites of James and Ellen White, J.H. Kellogg, Uriah Smith, Sojourner Truth, and C.W. Post. Our mission was to find Jana's great.... grandmother who is buried with the Whites (She is a White descendant). Unfortunately we didn't know where it was so several of us spread out to look for them. The problem is 28,000 people are buried there! I yelled out who ever finds the grave site gets free dinner. After about 30 minutes of searching Betsy Dunn found it. It was next to the entrance. If we would have turned to the left we would have tripped on it....we turned to the right. : ) The nice thing is that I found and saw several of the grave sites I wanted to see. It was great. Historically this was an other amazing experience. Not to be morbid but It would be great to be standing there when Jesus returns. To see all the early pioneers alive greeting each other giving each other high fives and hugs and of course saying FINALLY! No more "disappointment!"

Our Adventist Heritage

After we left B.C.A. and continued our journey to the Historic Adventist Village where we had the chance to experience the location of our early church leaders. We first stopped and hear a small presentation in  a replica of the 1857 Meeting House. At the end of the presentation we broke into song singing some hymns. It sounded so beautiful to hear our kids singing these traditional hymns a capella. I had stop just to listen to them sing. I really wish you all were here to listen. We went to Ellen White's house, a school house, a log cabin, & J. H. Kellogg's Discovery Center.

The grounds we green and peaceful. Everything stood humbly yet strong. I was in awe and I wish we could have stayed longer. I have to go back.

Battle Creek Academy

Today we performed at B.C.A. After an hour and a half we arrived in Battle Creek to a drizzly crisp morning. We were warmly welcomed by the school's principal Mr. Eric Velez whose wife taught two of our kids in kindergarten a Ridgecrest (Todd DeFluiter and Dustin Witzel). Their students were fun to perform with. Mr. Z made it really fun and interesting by dedicating an Oceanaires song to Mr. Velez's wife in Mr. Velez's name. He was just as surprised as Mrs. Velez.

The music teacher was really helpful by allowing us to use some of her percussion instruments which made setting up a lot easier. It was a good performance. On to Adventist Heritage Tour...