By Ari Cetron

When Heather and Doug Roberts, of Sammamish, decided to open a new winery and tasting room, they knew they wanted it to be about their family.

The couple named their vine-yard after their daughter, Ashlyn and the wines and tasting room after their other daughter, Amelia Bleu, both students at McAuliffe Elementary.

“We have two daughters,” Heather Roberts said. “One got the vineyard, and one got the wine label.”

Now, after years of work, they are debuting their 2009 vintage wines at their new tasting room in Woodinville, which opened Sept. 22.

They wanted to go a step further to honor their families, however, said Heather Roberts. Both she and her husband had lost a brother to cancer, and they wanted to commemorate them.

So they named one of their wines Riverenza, the Italian word for reverence, in their honor. The couple also plans to donate 5 percent of their profits to cancer research.

“We kind of started the whole business around family,” Heather said.

The trip to owning their vine-yard started in 2009. The econo-my had tanked, and the couple was looking for investments to protect their money. They saw a vineyard for sale near a vacation

home they own in Chelan.The 6-acre vineyard had been

planted, Heather Roberts said, but grapes (barbera, syrah, cab-ernet sauvignon and merlot) had not yet grown. With the unsteady

economy, they thought that if they chose not to open a winery of their own, they would still likely be able to sell the grapes to other winemakers.

“We knew we had some

options,” Heather said.They spent the past couple

years learning everything they could about winemaking and the business. As the economic pic-ture has begun to turn around, they decided to make a go of opening their own business.

They found people to help them with harvesting the grapes, then carted them back to the area for production. They’ve part-nered with another winery and use its facilities to make and age

community12 l September 26, 2012 SAMMAMISH REVIEW

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ContributedJulia and Elleny Lustig help create a quilt for Project Linus as part of the Day of Service. The two were among about 180 members of the Sammamish Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints who volunteered their time and efforts on the Day of Service the weekend of Sept 15-16. One group of about 35 worked on Project Linus, making quilts and blankets for children in need. Another group of about 150 helped maintain the city’s native plant garden at the Lower Commons Park near City Hall.

Mormons serve community

By Lillian O’Rorke

It’s a sunny early autumn afternoon and in between attend-ing Sunday school and running off to soccer games and other fun pastimes, several local youth gather together to harvest food for the Issaquah Food Bank.

“Digging the potatoes – it’s really fun,” said Alexandra Mohn, 9.

She, her twin sister Isabella, and about a dozen other chil-dren from their church, Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ, which meets at the Pine Lake Community Center in Sammamish, have been tending a garden for months.

With the leadership of Wally Prestbo they have grown more than 225 pounds of fresh vegeta-

bles for the food bank.“It’s a culmination of my inter-

est in gardening and wanting to have a mission for the children of the church,” said Prestbo, who grew up on a small farm in Spokane Valley.

Having had a garden at nearly everywhere he has lived, Prestbo

now volun-teers, teach-ing classes at the Bellevue Demonstration Garden and keeps a large garden at his home in Sammamish. Much of what is grown there is also donated. “That is prob-ably the larg-

est need at the food bank. They never can get enough produce, fresh produce.”

The “Spirit of Peas” garden, as reads the sign made by one

Local children grow food for the needy

See GARDEN, Page 13

“I plant a little bit of everything so the

children have a chance to see how to plant the

different types of vegetables.”

– Wally Prestbo, Gardener –

Sammamish’s new vintners focus on their family

ContributedDoug and Heather Roberts sample some wine as their vintage ages in barrels behind them.

If you go

The Amelia Bleu winery is at 19501 144th Ave. N.E., suite D-500 in Woodinville.

Grand Opening weekend, the tasting room will be open Sept. 22 from noon-7 p.m.

Regular hours are Saturdays from noon-5 p.m. and Sundays from 1-5 p.m. The winery, which is part of the Woodinville Warehouse will also be open from 4-8 p.m. the third Thursday of each month.

Visit www.ameliableu.com.

See WINE, Page 13

By Lillian O’Rorke

In 2002, Jeff Skiba, then a senior at Skyline High School, won the 3A state high jump championship. But it wasn’t just his 6-foot, 10-inch jump that was impressive – Skiba had one of his legs amputated as an infant.

He never let that slow him down and a decade later he’s still at it. On Sept. 8, this time on the world stage, Skiba thrust himself 2.04 meters, or 6 ft. 8.3 in, to clear the bar and win the silver medal at the London Paralympics.

“The stands were packed,” said Skiba, who also competed in the men’s javelin throw at the games and finished in eighth

place Sept. 2 with a distance of 49.09 meters (161 feet). “It was just incred-ible.”

This was not Skiba’s first trip

to the Paralympics. He first competed in the 2004 games in Athens where he also won silver in the high jump. In 2008, he traveled to Beijing. While it was a bad year for the financial sec-tor, it was a great year for Skiba. He won the gold medal for the high jump and earned the silver medal in the pentathlon.

Now with three Paralympics under his belt he and his family agree that London put on the best show.

“The people of Great Britain were amazing,” said his mother, Sheri Skiba, of Sammamish. She and Jeff Skiba’s father, sister, aunt and grandparents all traveled to London to cheer him on. “It’s probably the great-est support we’ve seen for the Paralympics.”

After being born without a fibula in his left leg, Jeff Skiba had the limb amputated when he was 11 months old. His mother said they had a good pediatrician and had seen other children with her son’s condi-tion play sports with prosthetics just like other kids their age.

“We always assumed he’d have a normal life, we didn’t assume he’d have an extra-nor-mal life,” said Sheri Skiba. “He’s a gifted athlete.”

Since graduating from Skyline in 2002 and earning that first state title, Jeff Skiba

has gone on to add to his list of accomplishments. Outside of the Paralympics, which just like the Summer Olympics, only come around once every four years, he won the gold medal in the high jump at the 2002 International Challenge Track and Field compe-tition. Later that year he gold medaled again in the high jump at the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) World Championship. Then in 2006, he competed in the pentathlon at the U.S. Paralympic National Championship and took the gold.

He went to the IPC World Championship again in 2006 and won the high jump gold medal and finished in fourth place in the long jump. And at the 2011 IPC World Championship, he won the sil-ver medal in the high jump.

It was at the Azusa Pacific Invite in 2008 that Jeff Skiba

became the first amputee to jump over seven feet. However, the event was not sanctioned by the Paralympic National Committee so the jump did not count as a world record.

He didn’t let the quibble set back his momentum. Later that year, he set the official world record of 2.11 meters at the Beijing games.

Now a police officer in San Diego, Jeff Skiba is still training

and already has his eye on Rio de Janeiro, home of the 2016 Paralympics.

“The London experience was awesome and all it did was moti-vate me to get ready for Rio in four years,” he said. “I want to get the gold metal back and my world record back.”

Reporter Lillian O’Rorke can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242 or ltucker@sammamishreview.com. To comment on this story visit www.sammamishreview.com.

sports14 l September 26, 2012 SAMMAMISH REVIEW

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By Lillian O’Rorke

Going into the conference match up Sept. 18 against the Interlake Saints, the Eastlake girls swim and dive team knew that every inch would count.

“If you are going to beat Interlake you have to race them into the wall” Nikki Bennet, a sophomore at Eastlake High School recalled her coach’s pre-meet words of advice.

Heeding her coach’s warning, Bennett hit the water kicking. Finishing the 200 freestyle in 2 minutes, 7.64 seconds, she bested her personal record by nearly half a second and won the race, ultimately helping the Eastlake Wolves skim past the Saints 92-91.

“I knew I had to win,” said Bennett, who was seeded No. 1 going into the race. “If not, I’d be kind of disappointed.”

Bennett went on to earn a touch-out win in the 100 freestyle

in 57.88 and to swim the third leg for the Wolves’ winning 400 free-style relay team, which finished 13 seconds ahead of the competi-tion in 4:01.94. She also anchored the 200-yard freestyle relay team, which took second in 1:48.80.

The lead-off swimmer on that same relay team was Erin Alleva. She too had a record-breaking day. Alleva out-swam the compe-tition in the 200-yard individual

medley and beat her per-sonal best both by three sec-onds in 2:25.91.

“I didn’t know going into the last 50 so I worked

hard. I just wanted to win,” said Alleva. “I didn’t look to the side; I was in my own race.”

She added that the only thing she was aware of while pushing through the pool was the cheers of her team.

Outside the water, the shrill yells vibrated off the walls of the Redmond Pool.

Photo by Lillian O’Rorke Eastlake’s Ally Haase dives into the Redmond pool for the 500-yard race Sept. 18 during the swim meet against Interlake.

Eastlake girls swim team touches out Interlake 92-91

See SWIM, Page 15

Skyline graduate jumps for silver at London Paralympics

Photo by Randy RichardsonJeff Skiba clears the high jump bar at the 2012 London Paralympics.

Je� Skiba

“The London experience was awesome and all it did was motivate me to get ready for Rio in four

years.”– Jeff Skiba, Olympian –“I didn’t look to the side;

I was in my own race.”– Erin Alleva, Swimmer –