Regional SA Conference

This weekend the Camarillo Stake hosted the Regional SA Conference. It started on Thursday evening with a chapel session and an endowment session at the Los Angeles Temple. It was a wonderful experience! President Dietrich, the temple recorder (also part of the TO stake presidency) spoke as well as President Heslop of the temple presidency. I was inspired and uplifted! Ami Harris, Corrine and I drove there together. Marj Kempner met us there.

Saturday we were asked to help with the breakfast and so we were at the church by 7:00 am! Hello, so much for sleeping in! We helped prepare the food and then joined the group for breakfast. The keynote speaker was Elder Tenney of the Seventy. I was asked to give the opening prayer at that meeting. He was a wonderful speaker and was inspiring. His wife spoke as well. There were two workshops -- one from Elder Tenney and one from President Barlow (yes, Uncle Norm). They were separated by a lunch catered by Subway and then there was another group session with Bishop Gholston from Newbury Park. He is a scientist for Rocketdyne and has been heavily involved with NASA. They did a question and answer session with the stake presidents and then dinner was from Wood Ranch. After dinner there was a special musical performance from James O'Neal Miner. He was amazing! After the performance I headed home (yes, I avoided the dance) and worked on RS!

So, a few people have asked me my thoughts on the speakers and so here are the main points I learned from each person:

Elder Tenney -- God is always creating and Satan's mission is to destroy. If we want to know how to respond, think about this -- is it creating or destroying?
President Barlow -- His presentation was "Walk Where Jesus Walks" and after spending time in the Jerusalem Center he gets asked, "How will I ever get to the Holy Land and be able to walk where Jesus walked?" He testified of the significance of the temple and that it is there we will walk where He walks
Bishop Gholston -- He gave a presentation about space and space exploration. He shared scriptures that talk about 'worlds without number' and showed 'evidence' of such in a scientific way. The last thing he stated and testified was from Elder Uchtdorf -- "God knows your name." Wow! That was a powerful conclusion.

You can buy a picture at each ride, but . . .

So, here are two pictures from our trip to Florida. As I mentioned, Corrine and I went to the Kennedy Space Center. They took a picture of us as we started. Well, it had a space shuttle in it and so we decided to purchase! I know, probably not the wisest financial choice, but what the heck!

Disney World has pictures at every turn. You could spend a small fortune on them. We passed them all up, however, this one at Disney's Animal Kingdom - Dinosaur ride was too good to pass up! Thanks Melinda for the laugh! Corrine and I had already been on this ride and we knew there would be dinosaurs jumping out. We asked the gal what side the large dinosaur was on and made sure Melinda was sitting on that side. Ironically, there were more dinosaurs on Corrine side (which she didn't really appreciate much) but the largest one was on Melinda's side and took a picture of us. I knew it was coming and so looked at the camera. So we can label this one --

Temperature at Disney World, 85 degrees,

Waiting in the line at Dinosaur, 10 minutes,

Getting a reaction (and picture) of Melinda on Dinosaur, PRICELESS!

Orlando with the girls (October 10-14)

So Melinda and Kate (both working with Symantec) had a work convention in Orlando FL this last week and asked Corrine and I to fly out for the weekend and play. Corrine and I left on Wednesday morning (6:00 am flight) and headed East. We arrived at 4:00 pm and Melinda picked us up. Corrine and I basically crashed that night while Melinda and Kate enjoyed their activities at Universal Studios with their company.

Thursday as they were finishing up Corrine and I spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center. Wow! It was fascinating. The shuttle will launch on October 23rd and it sits on the pad for 30 days before launch and so we were able to see it. Thursday night they finished with their commitments and we had dinner and then crashed again.

Friday and Saturday we spent at Disney World hitting four parks in two days! It was a whirlwind, but we had a lot of fun. Long days and short nights is a good description! Melinda has all of the pictures and so I will post some when they arrive.

Sunday we got up and went to sacrament meeting in the Windermere ward which meets across from the Orlando Temple. We took some pictures at the temple and then it was time to start heading back. Corrine and I got back to LAX about 10:15 pm. We were surprised to arrive at the car and find a dead battery. Gratefully we called AAA and within a half hour we were on our way home!

Thanks to Melinda and Kate for the invite! We had a great weekend!

BYU v UCLA game

So, a few months back I received a letter from the BYU Cougar Club offering for tickets to Cougar Club members. I asked everyone here if they wanted to go. We decided to go to the UCLA game. We purchased our tickets with Chris Lythgoe's family and Jim Bramwell's family right from UCLA. Surprisingly, this was cheaper. We were still able to sit with all of the BYU fans. The day was very hot. I had four tickets and took mom, Corrine and TJ (for his birthday) with me. Even though the outcome isn't what we wanted, it was fun.

One funny note. A few minutes into halftime TJ wanted to go down and go to the bathroom and get some food. I took him. As you can imagine the lines were VERY long. We stood around for quite a while. We even ran in to a friend. While I was down there I could tell the game had started again and we must have been doing well because 'our' side of the stadium was cheering. When we got back up to our seats I found out BYU had scored a couple of times. Unfortunately, I missed all of BYU's scoring while I was down there! Oh, well, we enjoyed our snacks!

My lost camera

For those of you who have been watching this very wonderful blog for updates, I am sorry! It has been about a month since I have had a camera. It is just gone! I cannot for the life of me figure it out! Everyone asks me, "where did you last use it?" of which my response is, 'I can't remember which is why it is lost!" So frustrating! I am ready to purchase a replacement. The saddest part are all of the pictures lost with it! Bummer!