georgecuevas.com

Time off?

Ok. So we took the weekend off and drove up to Tampa. You know… for a little R&R. Soooooo, this is how we roll in the Cuevas family. Take a look;)

How2:Series

Tools to Live Life. Lessons from the life of David.

Testing post from iPod

Hello anyone. Just wanted to test the ability to post to my blog using my iTouch and the WordPress app.

Straight text seems fine. I wonder of I can post an image.

2010… Bring it on!

]Here we are at the beginning of a new year. Last year is now in the rear view and a whole new landscape is before us.

I’m usually leery about looking back as I don’t want to get stuck there, but 2009 brought some highlights. My oldest daughter moved to MIT for college. My middle daughter sang the national anthem at her school pinning ceremony and got incredible letters of recommendations from teachers for her college applications. My youngest, well… she turned 13! I remember being “13″. Me and Laura stumbled upon motorcycling as a hobby and now we can’t get enough of being on the Harley.

Our CCk family has grown in numbers and in relationships that have become precious to us. We even got the privilege to host over 20 teens at our house this year for movies and video games. What a blessing.

Now, the new year swings open another door. What surprises does God have up his majestic sleeve? Where will he take me? What will he allow me to see and experience? Whatever it is, this year is already moving. So in the memorable words of Kuzco as he went over the waterfall in The Emperor’s New Groove… “Bring it on!”

CCk:SonRun Motorcycle Cruise

Hi all! Just wanted to let all my motorcycling brothers and sisters know that CCk will hosting a motorcycling cruise out to Key Largo.

Should be a great ride with a dinner stop at Rib Daddy’s. You can also visit the CCk website to register online. Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Foosball beauty

Well thought out design can make the most mundane object a piece of art. This foosball table by GRO design is no exception. Even if you never played or never cared to play, this table might just change your mind.

The thinking behind the design was to mimic a football stadium. The little player guys are chrome with dotted numbers on them. The ball is a brilliantly contrasting orange that is sheer genius. The table also features internal lighting effects to round out the gaming experience.

Check out the website and be inspired by this beautiful table.

SoNo, Bakeries and Dentists… Oh My!

The family enjoying the backyard cascade of the river.

Good morning everyone! This vacation has been one of the most enjoyable vacations that we’ve taken as a family. We’ve been hanging out with the family doing fun little things with everyone. Yesterday we took a drive down to SoNo (South Norwalk) and walked up and down a little bit. We stopped at a bakery that was awesome and picked up a slice of cheesecake, a chunk of coffee cake, a loaf of sourdough bread, a sticky bun, some monkey bread (look it up… its delicious) and then Madrina bought a coconut cake. Padrino also bought a trail mix cookie, which was so good… I need to look up the recipe, and a chocolate cherry cookie, which was good. Pretty much everything in that place was delicious, and I’d definitely go back for more.

Later, we all kinda split up. We went back to the house and had some lunch and then Oliver had to go to rowing practice. Megan had ballet later too. Mom, Dad, Padrino, and I went to go get Oliver from rowing and then we went to Madrina’s office and got our teeth cleaned. She’s a dentist(: And then we went to the coolest grocery store everrrr: Stew Leonard’s. It has like animatronics in every aisle and has really fresh food and its awesome. We were starving so we went back home and scarfed down some congri, ribs, baked beans, awesome bread rolls and ensalada. Its a weird mix of bbq and cuban food, but hey, we were hungry! And then Madrina pulled out the coconut cake and fudge ripple ice cream. Man, I’m going to have to work out to get that buttercream out of my system. Great…

After that, everyone started getting ready for bed, and when midnight happened, several presents were shoved into my face, and happy birthdays started streaming in from facebook. Its been great so far. Thanks for the birthday wishes, and also thanks for keeping up with this blog and being faithful to pray for us. We’ll be on our way home soon, so keep checking up on us. Hopefully we’ll get some more pictures up here soon.

with so much love,
aimee nicole

Picture TIme!

Hey guys, sorry its taken such a while to get these pictures up. Here are several of the different places we got to visit on our College Road Trip 09. Enjoy, george.

MIT Tour

Berklee School of Music

Fenway Park

Bunker Hill Memorial

Boston Stroll

So Long Boston. Hello Norwalk.

Yesterday concluded our stay in Boston. It was sad to go. I had a blast at the Vocal Summit and met a lot of really cool people from all over the world, and the rest of the family got to see the entire city and experience it for what it is. I think we can say, and agree, that Boston is one of the coolest cities we’ve visited as a family. The atmosphere is great, and, even though its set up similar to New York, its enjoyable. We all had a wonderful stay there and I’m glad we get to visit up there more often thanks to Rebecca’s schooling.

Right after I was picked up from my last session at Berklee, we made the 3 hour drive to Connecticut. We’ve been here several times over since our family lives here, and we love it. Its a great town and being with family is, obviously, the best part. So far, its going really well. My grandparents fly in this morning and should be at the house soon, and its an awesome thing when we’re all together because we don’t do it so often. I guess that’s what makes it so enjoyable.

For now, though, breakfast is waiting (;

with much love,
aimee nicole

Welcome to Boston

MIT humor;)

Today was our first day really getting to know Boston. And besides the really horrendous parking situations, its pretty cool. While I was at Berklee College of Music for my first day of vocal classes, Dad, Mom, Becca and Grace had fun exploring the MIT campus. They visited pretty much every building there and more. Becca’s super excited even though I’m pretty sure she’s a little freaked about the size of the campus. Its so big! But of course, once she’s up here in the fall, it’ll be even better.

My classes at Berklee (Check out the map) were great. There are 3 different buildings along the same street that I have to walk to to get to my classes. And lunchtime is great because I pretty much walk up Boylston and check out all of the different places there are to eat. Its kind of like New York, but… different. The atmosphere of the school was great. All the students there are awesome and really helpful (buildings 130, 136 and 150 are pretty crazy). Its really fun and crazy and musical, and its amazing.

So far, the only downer has been getting dinner. Everyone walks everywhere here, but we have a minivan which means parking. And parking is an incredibly huge ordeal. Like you wouldn’t believe. So after a frustrating half hour drive around Cambridge, we settled on Dad waiting outside while we ran inside the Taquería in the MIT student center. And yes, MIT students make ballin’ mexican food.

Tomorrow, I have more classes from 10am to 6pm, and while I’m there, the family will be touring Boston’s suburbia with some friends that live up here. I’m sure there will be pictures up soon, and I’ll try to remember to take pictures tomorrow so you can see my (hopefully!) school too. Believe me, its much more loose than Becca’s (;

PICTURE CHALLENGE: In the fly-thru movie above we found a Calvary Chapel along the way… which one was it? If you find it, comment below.

with much love,
aimee nicole

In The Beginning…

and so our blogging begins(:

this morning, we left Miami at around 6am. we had a long drive ahead of us, and we didn’t want to catch the morning rush. how long was the trip, you ask? well, today’s was about 15 hours of driving. yes, you read correctly. FIFTEEN hours. now, if you were with us on the California trip last year, you know that our endurance and tolerance to this has been developed incredibly, and, though we did start to feel the brutal drive in the later hours, we definitely had fun on the road.

again, we stopped at each state sign and took pictures for you to enjoy. there’s also the ever so popular, crowd pleasing fly-through, which will be posted here as well. your prayers have definitely helped because we haven’t had a major crisis yet, and all of us have gotten along really well. something different this year, we noticed, was that the food we decided to bring this year was healthier than last year’s choices. of course, the funyuns and doritos are excluded from this mix, but the fruit and whole grain muffins that we’ve brought along have been really good too. also, Grace broke a record: she managed to use the restroom at EVERY state line. yes. every. single. one.

tomorrow we have a 9 hour drive ahead of us, which is refreshingly brief after today. our only worry is hitting traffic in Washington DC, so please keep us in prayer. we’re leaving early in the morning again in order to try and get to Boston sooner. we want to check out Berklee College of Music and which building the Vocal Summit will be held at so that registration on Thursday morning will go smoothly. i have a placement audition, so please keep me in prayer!

thank you so much for joining us on this trip. we hope that you enjoy this as much as we are, and hope that you feel a part of our journey.

with much love,
aimee nicole

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Van pickup!

Well it’s done! We will be traveling in a silver, 2009, Chrysler Town & Country van.

It has captain seats in the front and second row seats. The back is a 2/3 bench that we’ll fold down and stick our cooler for easy reach. Another cool surprise was satellite radio! Bam! It’s also equipped with an Aux connection which allow us to connect our iPods and listen to them through the car stereo system.

We rented the van from Dollar Rent-A-Car and picked it up at the beach. The reason for that is that if you pick the vehicle up at the airport they charge you extra. Sooooo, since we’re on the cheap, this is easy savings.

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Stay tuned as we continue to get ready to hit the road:)

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RoadTrip prep

Time is coming around quickly for us to pack up a van and head on out on our College RoadTrip:09. Laura has been hitting the internet and setting up our hotel stays along the way and previewing the map to see the best way to get to Boston.

What is the trip about? Well, we actually are doing double-duty. Aimee is doing a 3 day Vocal Summit at the Berklee College of Music. Meanwhile, we’ll visit MIT and check out where Becca will be going come August.

We plan to keep you up to date so that parents heading into the “college kid” season of their life will get a short glimpse of what it is all about.

Meanwhile, read and comment your fingers away!

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Back on the bike!

All dressed for the road.

Finally! We got the Blue Horse back and it’s as good as ever. Took four months at the Harley dealer to have it put back together. Just to be clear, they could have finished it in a week but it took three months for the fender to get painted. Why? Well because the fender needed to get painted at the Harley HQ in order to match the original blue (Sinister Blue) color of the rest of the bike. After the three months of waiting thought the fender got back and it was purple! Not just any purple. But like Prince, Purple Rain purple! Ahhhhh. After crying to the dealer that I could not wait another three months to get my bike back, they put a black fender on and let me take the bike. Three months later, the fender arrived in all it’s blue glory and well, the rest is ride, ride, ride.

Me and Laura are having a blast riding around and discovering new parts of Miami we had never seen before. Though we are officially now in hurricane season, we still look out the window and sneak out as as much as the weather allows. For those that have a bike, i know you know what i’m talking about. If you don’t have one… well, you’re out of the loop.

It’s extremely hard to explain to non-riders the unique sensation of riding a motorcycle. I guess it’s like trying to explain to someone what it feels like to ride a roller coaster or jump out of a plane. You just will not know the thrill until you take the chance and have the experience yourself.

Here are some quick observations though. Motorcycle riders:
- are truly a mixed bag of people. All kinds are welcome.
- appreciate the “journey” more then the destination. Getting there is way more fun than being there.
- riders are friendly towards one another and wave to each other when they are traveling in opposite direction (try that in a car)
- no matter what riders look like, they are willing to talk to you in a friendly and encouraging manner
- there are no bike secrets. You want to know how something got done on a bike? Ask the owner and he will gladly give all the insight you need.
- hate people that drive cars too close to them. If you are near a rider please keep your distance. Don’t tailgate a rider please. This is super dangerous.
- DO NOT SIT or TOUCH anyone’s bike. Riders HATE that. Unless you are asked by the owner if you want to ride his bike, don’t even bother asking.

So, for those that are wondering whether to get a bike… what are you waiting for? Don’t let road miles pass you by without it being on a motorcycle.

Elements @ CCk

Hey guys, here is the latest artwork for a series Pastor Pedro is doing. Don’t miss the teachings on Sundays at both campus’s.

CCk:West Announcement

Hey folks, Calvary Chapel Kendall busted out the news this weekend that they will be adding another location for the church body. CCk:WestCampus will be located at the John A Ferguson High School in Miami, Florida. It was great to see the excitement in the body this weekend. Everyone is pumped to see God’s hand at work in this new location.

As stated by pastor Pedro, this is not going to be a video campus. He will actually be commuting between services on Sundays. The new schedule for services are as follows:

Saturdays: 6pm (this stays the same)
Sundays:
9:30am – Main Campus
11am – West Campus
12:30 – Main Campus

Evan Wickham @ CCk

Come out for a great night of worship with the CCk body. Check out Evans music at cdbaby.com

Fun with Julio & Dayne

What to do the Friday after Christmas… hang out with friends what else!

This has to sound familiar to most. You live in a great city and you never visit any of it’s tourist destinations because, well, they are always there. We take them for granted that they are just never going to leave. So we don’t bother making time to see what the fuss is all about.

Well, after eating a Mexican feast and talking about all kinds of things, my friend Julio pipes up and asks “What is there to do hear in Florida?” Mind you, he has lived here in Miami most his life. We all drew a blank trying to think of something else to do that would not involve a theme park (ala Disney) or visiting some beach community (ala Naples/Key West). After real bad attempts at coming up with some points of interests further up in central Florida, he says, “We (him and his wife) are thinking of going for an airboat ride wanna come?” I’m thinking “AIRBOAT RIDE!” Sounded cool but I have an aversion of being eaten alive by pigeon-sized mosquitoes! Yet with very little coxing we agreed to go and check it out.

Needless to say this was another lesson in how we cut ourselves short of God’s blessings simply because of fear of the unfamiliar. Being born and raised in Miami, I had NEVER been on an airboat ride. I had NEVER visited any of the Miccosukee Indian areas and I think i took a field trip to the Everglades in second grade. So much for having enough knowledge to create ANY kind of perception. Of course, with both families astride, we took off to the Miccosukee Arts Festival for a day of discovery. It was a great, beautiful day. We could not have picked a better day to go out there. The day was cool yet sunny. Breezy yet crisp. Perfect in every way.

Not only was the weather on our side, but so were our dear friends Julio and Dayne. You know, life should not pass us by so fast that we miss hanging out with the best people on earth. Julio and Dayne are those kinda of people you just can’t seem to get enough of. Don’t see them for six months, no problem, pickup exactly where you left off next time you get together. No guilt trip. No “Hey why don’t you call me anymore?” Just a genuine desire to be friends for as long as possible. In my book, they are low-maintenance with a high-friendship value.

Laura, armed with the digital camera took about 400 pictures. I’ve boiled it down to the following. Check them out. As you do, I hope it brings to memory that special friend you haven’t gotten together with in a while… go ahead and don’t wait to call and setup a gathering time. Also, I pray you see that the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, set us up to be amazed by the smallest pleasures in life… whether it’s exploring an indian village, examining the bumpy skin of an alligator or just enjoying the cool wind hitting you as you speed in an airboat, allow yourself to enjoy life… live life to the full.

As always, leave me comments and let me know what you think.

Click the picture to see the entire gallery

Cool Skates?

Ok. My life certainly does not revolve around “extreme” sports but I love the extreme design the skate culture encourages. From clothing to actual gear it just all looks cool. Even if I don’t do it I can walk into a ski shop and desire to walk out with the most killer parka and snowboard combo. Totally useless in Miami of course.

But here I want to highlight some new skates from freelineskates.com that push the “design” boundary. They look fun to ride and have a strikingly simple design. They are a cross between a skateboard and Rollerblades but without the excess baggage of a board or boots. Take a look at the video and tell me what you think.

Oh no he didn’t!

Is anyone out there absolutely outraged by our president having a shoe flung at him? I find this to be highly insulting to us as Americans! No matter what your opinion might be of President Bush, this is appalling. If an american would fling a flip-flop towards Fidel Castro can you imagine what an international incident that would be?

Quite honestly, I’m personally insulted that this dude had the audacity to disrespect my country and our highest elected official… and called him a “dog”! Only in America do we put up with stuff like that. If Bush is a “dog”, what deranged animal is that shoe-heaving journalist? Whatever he is, he obvoiusly needs to be checked for rabies.

Let me know what you think.

Bike Withdrawals

Ah man! Recently I was involved in a motorcycle accident on my Harley. Praise the Lord that I was able to walk away only with scraped knuckles. But now, as time has passed and the motorcycle sits in the service center of my nearby Harley dealership waiting for parts, I am so missing my ride! Miami, is having such great weather, it’s tough not rolling around town on the bike.

What happened to the bike? Well check the pictures out, but in short, the whole front end is being replaced. Forks, brakes, tire and fender. The bummer is that it apparently won’t be till the end of January till I get the bike back. Since the fender comes painted from the Harley Davidson factory, it takes them 12 weeks for receipt. Did you get that? Twelve weeks! Three months! The lady that cut me off already got her Cadillac fixed and i’m still waiting… and waiting.

Lord only knows why I needed a break from riding… so I patiently await the day the Harley dealer calls me for pickup.

Go Gators!

What an awesome game the Florida Gators put on against Alabama! Nail biting all the way through!

No. 2 Florida (12-1, 8-1) defeated No. 1 Alabama (12-1, 8-1) in front of a record crowd of 75,892 at the Georgia Dome on Saturday night to claim its eighth Southeastern Conference title in school history. Under head coach Urban Meyer, the Gators are 5-1 against opponents ranked inside the top five by the AP and 9-4 against top-10 ranked opponents.

It’s so great to be part of GatorNation!

ThanksLiving

What a wonderful day. One where the United States of America actually makes it a point to thank God for our many blessings. Personally this year has been filled with many highs and serious lows. One of the greatest blessings was knowing a friend by the name of Mary Barrett. She went on to be with the Lord this year, yet I cannot thank God enough for giving me the pleasure of knowing her, her music and her passion for Jesus.

Another major highlight was the surprise purchase of a 1999 Harley Road King Classic! I never even dreamed of owning a machine like this. It’s hard to express how incredible and fun experience owning a Harley is. If you own one, you know what I mean. The best summation of what it feels like to ride is a quote from the book “RoadShow” by Neil Peart… “When I’m riding my motorcycle, i’m so glad to be alive. When I stop riding my motorcycle, I’m so glad to be alive.”

I also thank God for my girls. All three girls are doing great in school. Gracie is focusing and getting great grades. Aimee got her IB pin and Becca’s filling out college apps and scorching her report cards with A’s. I am blessed. How about Laura? Well, as my wife and best friend I’m most grateful that I get to be with her most of my day. I share both work and home life with her… how awesome is that?!

Then there is my CCk family. I thank God for the ability to do what I love doing and doing it with friends I love. Being part of a group of Jesus loving, God honoring folks who selflessly give of themselves to see others lives change for the better is a huge blessing.

In retrospect, all this thanksgiving is just a daily build up of gratitude to the Lord. Despite ups and down. Regardless of good or bad circumstances, the bible exhorts us to give thanks in “all” things (Eph 5:20). So till next Thanksgiving, live life in an attitude of thanksliving so you won’t miss any of the many blessings God is throwing your way.

Galatians – study artwork

Starting the study in the book of Galatians the pastor wanted to focus on the concept of freedom. The difficulty was that most of the things we normally think of representing freedom I couldn’t use. Why? Well, because his point was that the only thing that offers real freedom is faith in Jesus. Duh. So motorcycle riders, people in convertibles or walking on the a beautiful beach were all out.

Since I was stuck for a “freedom” image I started thinking of the opposite idea… being bound. As I started to search for imagery, I first thought of an open jail cell. Wanting to simplify the idea I thought of bob wire and fencing. This would offer some cool texture possibilities. Except I still could not get it to say freedom. Searching a little more I went on to look for broken chains (a freedom metaphor in the bible) that led to open locks then viola! Ball and chain. Writing the word freedom the shapes instantly came together. Now that I had the “binding” idea, I felt it still needed to show being set free, thus the legs walking away.

All artwork was manipulated and composed in Photoshop.

Philippians – study artwork

Hey gang! We just finished running through the book of Philippians but so i thought I’d post the study graphics for some of the teachings. As always, your comments are welcome.

Ken Ham @ CCk

Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to learn from one of the most sought after speakers about creation science, Ken Ham. He is the president and founder of Answers in Genesis-U.S. and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum. As a native Australian now residing near Cincinnati, Ohio, he is the author of numerous books on the book of Genesis, the accuracy and authority of the Bible, dinosaurs, and the destructive fruits of evolutionary thinking (including his co-authored new book on the “races” and racism, Darwin’s Plantation, and the bestseller, The Lie: Evolution). He appears frequently on American TV (in 2007 alone: Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor and Fox and Friends in the Morning, CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, ABC’s Good Morning America, the BBC radio/TV, etc.).

Ken hosts the daily radio program, “Answers … with Ken Ham,” heard on more than 900 stations in America (and dozens more overseas) and is one of the editors and contributing authors for AiG’s Answers magazine (a biblical worldview publication with over 60,000 worldwide subscribers).

Ken is also credited for the newly opened, high-tech Creation Museum near the Cincinnati Airport — which attracted over 400,000 visitors (and several of the world’s major media) in its first year.

Invite all your friends to attend this awesome event!

Getting Organized Online

Always on the look out for a way to get better organized, when the guys at Behance.com announced that they were working at turning their paper action-method products to an online application I could not wait to see it. Well, it’s finally out and they have put out a quality product.

No matter how complex your do-list might be, actionmethod.com is ready to make you focus on what you are supposed to be doing. Instead of overwhelming you with a long list of projects with sub-tasks, you’re led to think actions (tasks) first then fit them into any particular project. I can’t believe such a simple change could take so much pressure off of staying on task.

What else is cool? The “Delegation” command is super cool to pass the task-buck to someone else using action-method.com. The simple layout organization is fantastic and easy to read. And wait till you get the Action Method Daily Update email letting you know what is coming due… simple and brilliant!

Actionmethod.com has a free sign-up plan that is quite generous to really give anyone a good idea if the online app can is for them. Go, give it a run and let me know what you think.

James – study artwork

Hey all! Well we finished the gospel of John after almost two years! So what’s next for CCk on the weekends? How about the book of James?

The teaching series was to focus on the practical side of our faith. Thus the name “FaithWorks”. Yes there is a double meaning in the name that’s pretty cool too. From the get-go I felt it had to have an industrial component because of its authentic, hard-work metaphor.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
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