San Diego (Part 1)

These past two weeks I have spent in my home town of San Diego to help out with AIM's annual West Coast Missions Conference.  Well...the first week was to help with the conference and the second was to spend some time with my family. =) So much happened that I feel the need to separate this into two posts.

This year's conference was set-up a little differently as the AIM San Diego Team hosted it (normally headquarters hosts it).  What this meant was training the executive and assistant directors on everything it takes to put together a conference...it just happened to be a huge bonus that it was my mom and brother I was training. =)  I've spent a good portion of these last two months talking my mom and brother through the different steps of putting this conference together and even more, how to train those under them to run and put it together.

I then took on the adventure of traveling to San Diego with Z all by myself (which I've already written some about).  I was excited to touch down in San Diego and be mobbed by my nieces, nephew and siblings as I stepped off of the elevator.  I spent that night chilling with my family and mentally preparing for the next day.

Wednesday was filled with meeting with the SALT (Student ACTION Leadership Team) of AIM San Diego.  They each came individually or as a family group. I had back-to-back meetings from 9am - 6:30 pm.  Needless to say it was a full day.

Thursday was spent running through all of the last minute things and running errands for the conference.

...and then came the big day, Friday.  We again met with the SALT early to run through final details before the attendees arrived.  We had 69 students, parents and younger siblings attending the conference. This included the 26 AIM San Diego students, students from the San Diego area, and a team of people from Lompoc, Ca.

Something unusual happened for me this conference in that I actually got to sit in on several of the classes.  Normally, I am teaching during these times or doing other tasks to keep things on track.  This year however, with the SALT leading most of the classes and then parents teaching several as well, I only taught during one of the class periods.  Also, we had a parent completely in charge of the kitchen with a wonderful team of helpers so I did nothing in that area either...other than to sneak some samples here or there. =)

We wrapped up the conference with three different presentations.  One at a church, one at an American Legion family picnic and finally, one at Seaport Village.  It was neat to see how versatile the art of mime is as we went from ministering to a body of Christians, veterans, and then to anyone who happened to be at Seaport Village that day.

Overall, the conference was a huge success and a wonderful way to spend time with my family but more on that later...

Oh and what's a blog without a couple pictures of a bunch of mimes?

Group Picture at Seaport Village

Libs after a mime paint class