Lincoln Brewster

I recently attended the Saddleback Worship & Creative Arts Conference at Saddleback Church which is only 25 minutes from where we live. They had an incredible line up of contributors there speaking, performing, leading worship and giving workshops. Rick Warren, Erwin McManus and The Urban Poets, Tim Hughes, Vicki Beeching, Lincoln Brewster, Abe Laborial & Friends, Kay Warren, Jimmy & Carol Owens, Brenton Brown, Paul Baloche... and the list goes on and on. An incredible roster of talent. It was 3 days of great input and inspiration.

Lincoln Brewster has long been a favorite of mine - mostly for his blistering guitar playing and tastiness. He and his band rocked the house on the Wednesday night, leading us all in worship and exuberant praise.

Oh yeah! Play that thang!

Form

On our trip up the coast I was killing time while waiting for Ali to come out of a shop... actually I wasn't killing time, I was using it to relax and to look for things to catch my eye so I could take a shot. I just liked the colors and form of this park bench and background.

Californian Coast

A couple of weeks ago we took the opportunity to have a week off and go on a road trip from Orange County to San Fransisco and back. Daniel was in the middle of a 21 day Wilderness trip with his school so Ali and I took our time seeing the sights of the Californian countryside. We set off with no particular schedule but to drive up Pacific Coast Highway (1) and enjoy the sights.

What an awesome trip! The natural landscape is spectacular - from jagged rocks and ranges to wide plains, from beautiful white sandy bays to sheer cliffs, from rolling hills to sand dunes to towering peaks, from boring dry brown desert to brightest blue skies and seas, fields of green crops and kaleidoscopic fields of flowers. Everything in America is big and on a big scale, and I wonder if that bigness is just a reflection of the amazing land that is USA.

I've gathered a few photo's from the trip here. Of course I took many more but this may give you just a taste.

Just outside the town of Solvang which is a town that was settled by the Danish. You'd swear you were in Denmark as you walk around this town. Anyway, you come around a corner and see this sight and just go WOW!

A couple of miles further on we had this striking contrast.

We stayed a night in Seaside, just outside Monteray. The next morning we went back in to Monteray and saw these seals basking on the rocks. Basking is probably the wrong word as it was very misty, almost raining.

Further up the coast we saw the Elephant Seal colony. These guys were basking, although the effort it takes them to haul themselves this far up the beach seems to make them pretty sleepy.

I can't remember the name of this place but this old lighthouse has been there many years. It no longer operates.

The actual road itself is pretty awe-inspiring. There are some amazing feats of engineering just in the road - this bridge included.

Of course, you can't go to San Fransisco and not see the Golden Gate Bridge. And what a beautiful day we had for it. You can drive (way) up the side of a hill to get views like this (well almost, the girl was a bonus! I ended up taking her home.)

My own Golden Gate Bridge postcard shot!

The Police Adventure

On the 23rd of June we made the trek from Orange County into LA to go to the Police Concert at Dodger Stadium. We had been looking forward to this little bit of history and to being able to be a part of it.
Most of the trip is pretty straight forward - just lots of cars and billboards for miles!
Straight up the I-5 Freeway for almost an hour and you're almost there... then it's a bit of a maze. Los Angeles is like a huge bowl of spaghetti! You have to really be concentrating. We actually missed our exit coming home and ended up driving around for an hour before we were back on track.
This is Dodger Stadium (with LA central in the background). It's probably a great Baseball venue but it's not a great concert venue. The sound was very disappointing and the view wasn't too good either unless you were directly in front. However there were a lot of good songs and everyone was singing along whenever they could (55,000 of them!) so there was a great atmosphere.

We thought we'd get into the spirit of things and because we were at the famous Dodger Stadium I had a beer and a hot dog and Ali had a margarita and a hot dog. Yep, classic American culture.

When we came out of the concert we came out a different way than we went in and couldn't find our car in the parking lot for about half an hour. We obviously weren't the only ones as there was a cacophony of car horns and alarms blaring as people tried to locate their cars. Once we realized we were in the wrong car park completely it didn't take too long to find our car. Funny that!

We ended up finally getting home at about 1am and getting about 5 hours sleep before we had to get up and set up for church. So overall it was a great experience and it was worth it for the memories.

Heart and Soul, Rock Worship!

Leeland Mooring is the lead singer and writer of most of the songs. His brother Jack is on keys and co-writes on some tunes. This is definitely a band sound though. Fresh and Passionate. Great songs coming straight from the heart. These guys have a very big future indeed. We were blessed to be able to see them back in May, live at Harvest Christian Church in Riverside (Pastor Greg Laurie).

If you haven't heard this album yet, chase it down. It's musically and lyrically fresh and will inspire you to worship.

The Loudest Voice

There is a cool little community about 20 minutes from us on Balboa Island near Newport Beach. There's a narrow street of little shops, craft places and unique little fashion places mainly. (It's very unlike the rest of Orange County!) But there's also a very cool art gallery/shop there that we've enjoyed looking through a few times. I saw this statement on one of the creations there and thought it was quite pertinent. I know it's often like this for me anyway. How about you?
Found this outside one of the little shops. I thought it was worth a shot.

Spirit West Coast at Del Mar Fairgrounds

On Saturday 26th May Daniel and I drove down the 5 Freeway (I should say crawled! It took 2 hours to travel what should have taken 1) to Del Mar Fairgrounds where the annual Spirit West Coast Festival was happening. Paul Colman had managed to get us tickets into the event for that day. How cool! This was the second time we have seen Delirious in 3 months and the second time we had seen Newsboys in 3 months too. They both rocked, but I must say Newsboys sure know how to put on a show. They would be possibly the best show I have ever seen. Very impressive!
Paul Colman rocking out on lead guitar for Newsboys. He's doing a great job! Was good to catch up briefly too.
Peter Furler is the consummate performer and a pretty good bloke too. You've gotta go see these guys if you ever get the chance.