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.

Summer is almost here . . . and raccoons have arrived!

The unofficial beginning of summer came and went (Sam, Jenn, and Meg came down for the Memorial Day holiday and we all went to UCLA for the Reggae Festival). A couple of days ago, we celebrated Hannah's, Dillon's, and several others' graduations from high school. That same day was Tom's last day of teaching for the year and yesterday I cleaned and re-did the pond while Tom cleaned his classroom and put it away for the summer. It's still not June 21st but summer is here!

For the past two weeks, we have suspected a raccoon has been in the yard. Thankfully, it appears to have given up trying to catch anything in the ponds (too deep and steep - yay!) but the water bowls have been muddy every morning and I've seen tracks here and there. This morning, as I was about to get dressed for work, I saw this Mom and Cub coming out from under our backporch. I quickly turned on my FlipVideo and followed them as they climbed over the fence. The cub saw me and climbed the tree but Mom climbed up after it (after I had gone inside for a while) and pretty soon they both came down again. Don't know why they came out in daylight.

Iris Time

The past two weeks have been wonderful for watching our irises bloom. Each day has brought new colors in different parts of the yard! This seems to be the year for color. Our tulips didn't bloom in large bunches like they have other years, but their colors were gorgeous. Looks like the irises are fabulously colorful but taking turns to bloom a few plants at a time.
(Click on the posting title to see more photos.)

Tree Frog by the Pond

We heard it loudly proclaiming its presence (looking for a mate?) several weeks ago but we never saw it until recently. I ran into this little guy while I was transplanting some pots over the weekend. (A few more pictures.)

Compassion and Enlightenment

I didn't get tickets to hear His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, speak at UCSB on Friday, but I was able to listen to his talk on Ethics for Our Time, via the internet broadcast on KCSB. (The talk on Nature of Mind is also available via KCSB.org.) Then on Saturday, I was blessed with the experience of watching the group of Tibetan monks who had been working on a sand mandala all week, take the intricate design apart during a beautiful dissolution ritual. Photography wasn't allowed inside the museum so I only have photos and this video of what happened after the monks left the building:


Here is one photo but there are a lot more on our photo page.(My video is very shaky because I was so excited and wasn't using a tripod. There are some great photos of the sand mandala and a really good video on Nooshawk.com.)