D-Now and Ziva

In December Andy informed me that him and Lyla had decided that we needed a dog. Andy is a dog lover. While I like animals, I prefer them at other people's houses. I'm just not one of those people who gushes over animals...of any kind. Andy and I had Emma, the miniature dachshund for a couple years (until she fell in love with our neighbors and moved with them). Then we had Tank...the great Dane for  about 4 months until the dog hair and dinosaur sized crying got to be too much. Especially since Lyla was still so small. My house had been joyfully pet free for a couple years. However, being the great wife and mother than I am (hahaha) I gave in. On Valentine's Day Lyla and I went to pick up Ziva, a small lab mix, from some friends who were moving and couldn't keep her. Ziva was 1.5 at the time and kennel/potty trained. She took to our sweet little family quickly and Lyla and Andy are totally in love! While I don't love the dog hair that is EVERYWHERE, I do love that Ziva makes my family happy and is a great dog!

That same weekend we were a host family for a our church youth conference, D-Now (Disciple Now). FBC, along with a couple other churches, put on a youth conference every February for the local youth. Families open their homes to be "host families" for the kids for the weekend. Usually D-Now falls during one of my competitions, but this year it was on a free weekend. Andy and I signed up for girls as we really wanted Lyla to be around Godly young women. And not to mention our house is a girly one....Andy is the only male. We ended up with 11 8th grade girls! Andy became fearful of the all "hair flipping". I seriously thought he was about to check into a hotel for the weekend. But he perservered. It was an awesome experience. We got to attend the worship and large groups which was AWESOME! Nothing like several hundred middle and high school students worshiping the LORD. Our house was filled. We had an air mattress in Andy's office, two in the living room and two in Lyla's bed room. Each couch was slept on and Lyla and Ziva slept in our room. Lyla stayed up playing with the girls each night until at least midnight. In fact, she cried the last morning because her "friends" were leaving. She loved having a mass sleep over for the weekend! It was such an honor to feed these girls, spend some time talking about our savior and laughing and their youthfulness. Our two college students who were the leaders for this group were amazing and sweet and just a joy to be around. It was a wonderful experience that I hope to do again. God certainly used our tiny little home in a big way and I think we were all changed for the better because of it!