Beautiful Saturday

Today was such a great day. Aaron and I took Lincoln to Heights Park, one of the many beautiful parks close to our apartment. Heights Park has two playgrounds, both the old fashioned kind, with the tall metal slides, and big swings, and animals made out of metal that kids can climb on. One of the playgrounds even had a tall metal rocket ship, with about four different levels inside that kids could climb up in. It was a pretty cool park, even if Lincoln isn't old enough to play on most of the toys. As we were swinging with Lincoln in the swings, I noticed that there was a family (probably including extended family) there. All the adults were sitting in lawn chairs in the shade, with coolers and food on the picnic tables, just talking and having a good time, while all the kids played on the playground and ran back and forth all over. To me, this just seemed like the perfect picture of summer. If I could choose only one thing to do all summer long, I think that would be it. Just to spend it with family, good food, and cold drinks, under the shade of a tree on a beautiful day watching all the kids run around having fun.

In Texas, at the parks and along the sides of the road, they do something which I think is really cool. They plant wild flowers in certain parts of the grass and then leave them to grow without mowing them down. (We still haven't figured out how you go about planting wildflowers, but that's a topic for another day.) It's beautiful. And Lincoln seemed to think they were tasty as well, because he kept popping them in his mouth like candy. At one point I noticed he was chewing on something, and stuck my finger in his mouth to remove whatever it was, and pulled out three complete flowers! What a kid.

In the afternoon we had an opportunity to go support two investigators by attending their baptisms! It's been a long time since I've been to a baptism. I really enjoyed the spirit that was there. Welcome to our ward Roy Hawkins and Tekoa Rudolph! Lincoln got a little bit vocal during the talks afterwords, so I had to take him out in the hall, but I was really glad that we were able to see the baptisms. Being there made me think about my brother (who is serving his mission in Guatemala right now) and how what he does every single day is try to get people ready to be baptized, or in other words change their lives by bringing them closer to our Savior. What a great thing to be doing!


After the baptisms, we went bowling with our friends Brian and April, and Roy. It was a lot of fun. Aaron and I have been wanting to go bowling for a while. The bowling alley we went to was cool too. It was galactic bowling, so Lincoln was glowing, it was great. And they also were playing music videos from the 80's so Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, and White Snake, and all those. Man it was hilarious! Aaron and I were talking about how it's funny to think all the effects they use in the videos, that seem almost cheesy now, were like the top of the line technology back then. I was also noticing that pretty much everyone in the videos was fully clothed, which you definitely don't see now days. (Not that you can even watch music videos now days because they are so awful.) But we had a fun time bowling. Aaron bowled a 106! And Lincoln and I bowled I think it was a 32. Hmm...guess Linc and I need some work! Oh well, we still had a great time. And it was so nice to be out of the house for most of the day!