Family Day at the Zoo

Today was an historic day. Tyler participated in what very well may have been his last event aimed at the children of Woodland West, and then turned around and went to his very first outing scheduled for the Youth Group. And that statement just about sums up Tyler in a nutshell: Not a boy, not yet a man.

Our new children's minister, Emily, organized an outing to the Fort Worth Zoo and we had a great time (we won't speak of the humidity). My girls' friend, Kirsten, had spent the night with us Friday night so this picture is of the girls ready to roll in the back of the van.


And here you see two brothers who could not be any closer. Tyler and Sawyer are so alike it's scary. Their love of all things Star Wars goes so deep and is so all-encompassing, I can't even fathom that there would ever come a day when Tyler would shun his little brother, thinking it's not "cool" to have light saber fights anymore. It's just not possible. Mark my words.


Here are the girls with Emily, our children's minister (Kirsten was looking at her mom, who was taking a picture at the same time).


There's always got to be at least one picture of the kids on the back of an alligator! Kirsten stood in for Tyler because he and his friend Ian took off by themselves (they're not kids anymore, you know!); I was so glad she did because you KNOW I get nervous and jerky when my group shots don't have four kids in them!


So I was thinking recently that I have very few pictures of me with my kids, because it's always me behind the camera. Therefore, I thought I'd make a conscious effort to remedy that problem and here is my first attempt.


Whoops! A little too close. Let's zoom out and try again, shall we?


Much better!

Poor Tyler is going to be exhausted in the morning. He got up at 7:00 a.m. and went to the Men's Prayer Breakfast with Randy, came home in time to change for the zoo (we were there from 11:00 to 4:00) and then he came home, changed again (he's got nothin' on the girls!) and left at 5:30 to go to dinner and the movies with the Youth Group. I would be concerned that he would be tempted to fall asleep in church tomorrow but fortunately he's serving on the Lord's table all month and communion is served right before Randy gets up to preach. At least that will give Tyler an opportunity to get up and get the blood flowing to all his extremities. That ought to keep him awake during the sermon. Well, that or a good hard poke in the ribs!