Summer is Official!

The Summer Solstice occured at 12:46 a.m. CDT. This is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and marks the Sun's northernmost point in the sky.

To Redlands and Back Again

We're home from another wonderful time at the University of Redlands for the Annual Conference of the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. (That's right, the organization is an "Annual Conference" and it meets as this entity annually.) As happens every year, more than 1,700 laity and clergy from across Southern California, Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan gathered. According to the Cal-Pac News, "this was the 25th Annual Conference Session of the California-Pacific Annual Conference, which was created out of the Pacific and Southwest Annual Conference. This session marks the 158th session since the organization of The Pacific Conference in 1851, the oldest of the merging Annual Conferences." This year, the organizers shortened the time period (Wednesday - Saturday) and made off-campus accomodations available. So instead of staying in one of the University of Redlands' dorms, Tom and I stayed at the Redlands Comfort Suites.This allowed Tom to relax and hang out at the hotel while I was at the plenaries or volunteering in the Video Room, and join me for meals, conference choir rehearsal, or worship services whenever he wanted. Linda French and I took pictures of everything in order to display them during our Annual Conference Report during worship services on June 28th. I videoed what I could to add to the visual report. Besides Linda and me, Jeff Brackett was the third lay representative from FUMC, and Dick French and Tom rounded out our Ventura First lay group.