A Visiting We Will Go

There are a few benefits to visiting a different church each week. There is meeting new people, hearing different styles of preaching, and seeing how God is working in that place. There are also a couple of less righteous high points such as being able to wear the same thing every week with no one but your own family to notice. JD also pointed out this morning that we can park in the visitor parking spaces.
We started our tour of churches this morning and have already learned a very important lesson. Preachers take vacations in the summer. Oddly enough we actually changed the church we planned on going to today because we knew the regular pastor wasn't speaking and yet we ended up with a fill in guy anyway. The people were welcoming, the music was toe taping southern gospel, and the substitute speaker was...well meaning. More than one person apologetically told us the pastor would be back next week. At one point I was sure the man was about to pass out, but he pulled through. He was brief and I am pretty sure he set a record for the number of if times a person can say "God bless your soul" in a 20 minute period. There was actually something oddly fun about it. The overall experience was pleasant and encouraging to us.
Don't ask me where we went because I won't tell you. I will tell you that we might go back to hear the pastor speak, but not next week because we already have another one picked out.

JD's Animal Kingdom

For some reason I have yet to figure out JD has been insisting that one of his favorite stuffed puppies, Brownie, wants to sleep in my room. It was kind of cute at first, but after a few nights I decided it was time to kick the tiny dog out. I told him that Brownie missed his friends and needed to go back to his room. He got that certain JD smile and I knew my bed was about to be filled with puppies. I told him in no uncertain terms that Brownie's friends could not come downstairs. I went to the bathroom and came back to find that JD had enlisted his sister to bring a mass of dogs into the room. In Nix's defense she had not heard my decree, but I knew JD had. When I confronted him he calmly explained that these were not Brownie's friends they were his family.
It would seem that some stuffed animal puppy love has been going on right under my nose. JD's dog Max and Nix's pink poodle Sophia have been married and given birth to Brownie and Floppy. This is not the only happy family we have in the toy box. Many of JD's boy animals have gone courting in Nix's room. I am not sure which of the kids started the matchmaking service for stuffies, but it is pretty funny. I am very flattered to report that all the mommy and daddy animals seem to get along very well and it is only the siblings of opposite genders that ever seem to fight. Apparently the girls are too bossy and the boys are annoying. No psychology degree needed to figure that one out.