Lions and Tigers and ...

Peacocks, oh my! On Saturday morning, we gave daddy the house to himself and went to "Sunset Zoo" in Manhattan with Hayden's buddy Alli and her mom Tami. We had a great time and Hayden and Alli really enjoyed seeing all of the animals! They're favorites were the two tigers, and the peacocks that roamed around the zoo. Here's just one of the many we "bumped" into during our visit.



Hayden was particularly mesmorized by the tigers ... they laid in the same place the entire time and he stared at them for the longest time, not moving a bit. We finally decided it was time to move on, and he was not very excited about that, so in the gift shop we got him a little stuffed tiger, which he finally let go of during his nap later in the day!





Saturday evening we went to Lenny, Tami and Alli's for a barbeque. David and Lenny could not get enough of the BBQ ribs (they were quite amazing), and after such a big, delicious meal, we just relaxed and enjoyed watching Hayden and Alli play. Alli is two, so she's showing Hayden how things are done ... he follows her around everywhere, and actually started following her upright ... as in WALKING everywhere! Saturday night was the first time that Hayden has taken more than 5 or 6 steps at a time and now he is full-blown walking ... we're ecstatic for him, and he was so excited to be walking that you could hear little squeals of joy as he followed Alli down the hallway! He's growing up so fast!

Our worship service on Sunday evening brought about some excitement. David prepared a message for the evening...holiness being the topic (I Peter 1:13-2:3). To summarize what God gave him to say: Holiness isn't a goal to achieve by climbing a ladder of good choices. We are made holy when we claim Jesus Christ to be Lord of our lives...we're set apart from the ordinary. He broke the passage up to explain 4 categories of our lives in which holiness makes itself known:
1. Self Control (vs. 13-16)
2. Reverence (vs. 17-21)
3. Love (vs. 22-25)
4. Nourishment (2:1-3)
To top the evening off...we had many surprise guests who must have come via our attraction event a week ago or maybe just word of mouth. However they got to us...it was nice because we doubled our normal attendance! It was a lot of fun to meet new people and share our stories about what God has been doing in the new church...we're all pretty pumped right now and we haven't even launched yet!

That was our weekend. We hope you enjoy your week!