Recently we were able to visit Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park which are right next to each other and are managed as one national park. We spent Monday night and Tuesday night in Azalea Campground which is in Kings Canyon then spent quite a few hours on Wednesday in Sequoia. The campground was nice although having a bathroom a little closer would have been nice. The weather was perfect with lows at about 50 degrees and highs in the low 70's. On Monday afternoon we did the Big Stump trail which features several very large stumps from the days when the sequoias were not protected and people were chopping them down. This is the Mark Twain stump: On Tuesday, we saw the General Grant tree which is the 3rd largest tree in the world. We also did an 8-mile hike to Mist Falls. Sequoias are especially good at surviving fires which helps them live a lot longer. General Grant survived a fire which did this to it: Then we drove about an hour up Kings Canyon which has Kings River running...
Lincoln recently had a big birthday! Last year I did all his pictures from high school which turned out to be a very long post. Here are a few pictures from his mission to Edmonton, Canada. He left shortly after his high school graduation on July 23, the day before we left to participate in the Nauvoo pageant. He was a hard-working missionary and served an honorable mission. One of my favorite pictures in front of the MTC: Saying goodbye to Jan the night before: Going to the Jordan River Temple for his endowment: Becoming an elder: Actual mission: At the beginning of August, 2016, Lincoln came home. He unfortunately got shingles his last week or two and came home with Bell's palsy making it hard for him to smile. He also did not feel his best. But we were super happy to see him as we always are happy to see our returning missionaries.