Best. Date. Ever.

        This Friday night I got to experience the best date ever. I met up with him in Orem around 6:30, I felt horrible because I was running late but it wasn't a big deal because he was late too. We decided to start the night off with a little bit of basketball. He is a special kind of guy if he can get me to play basketball for any length of time. He is such a "baller." He could dunk it, put it in backwards, lie on the ground and shoot, and had a beautiful one handed layup. Keep in mind the hoop was about 5 feet tall. After an hour or so of basketball and water breaks we decided it was time to get in the ball pit. This didn't last long however because he kept chucking balls at my face with his highly impressive arm, not a fan. We moved on to a movie, Tarzan to be exact. It has been too long since I had watched that movie but it was great watching it with my man. We then decided to hit the swings where he showed off by tossing a ball into the hoop from the swing which was at least 10 feet away from the hoop, so impressive! "Go BYU!" After cleaning up or ball mess in attempting to make the 10 foot shot we had a little bit of a tickle fight. It was great.
   
        I am thinking that right about now you are a little weirded out by this description, or maybe you aren't which means you are a little bit strange. Allow me to explain, this wasn't your average date, I actually would venture to say that it wasn't a date, I just thought the title would suck you in. The reality of the matter is I spent my Friday night with a 4 year old boy named Andrew. Andrew has Down Syndrome, which a lot of you should be familiar with, if not you should be. Andrew's parents brought him to Friday's Kids Respite in Orem. They got a night off and I got to spend time with there wonderful boy. It has been a long time that I have laughed so hard. My favorite was when he made the hoop from 10 feet away (true story) he looked at me with his eyes stretched open to capacity, his smile barely containing there excitement, his arms raised in the air and said, "Go BYU!" I didn't even have to prompt him on that one.

         My favorite thing about Andrew was his obvious joy for living. He would look at me with his eyes as wide as possible and a big toothy grin and I could see he could hardly contain his joy. I wish I could show you the excitement that emanated from his whole body. The amazing thing was how this joy came from something as insignificant as having someone play with him, someone to smile, to cheer him on. This little boy is happy to be alive. It made me realize that I can be that happy, I can find joy in just living, and when I do I can uplift other people as Andrew uplifted me. Just sitting here thinking about the experience I can't help but smile.

        If you think you would enjoy working with kids like Andrew you should check out www.fridayskids.org. I also would like to say that this would be a WONDERFUL date idea. I would love love love someone to take me here on a Friday night, just saying. :)

And these are my friends. We had a great weekend together in Wyoming. :)