Barista

Madison's first thought upon waking up this morning was this:  what about the coffee station?  Mommy and Madison have taken it upon themselves to clean up the coffee station, and resupply all the little cream dispensers - this despite the fact that neither of them drink coffee.  Nor does Daddy for that matter.  Or Josh.  Now, we'll all drink the fancy coffee, the Kona coffee or some sort of fall or Christmas coffee from time to time.  But we're not active coffee drinkers at all.  

And yet Madison was seriously concerned about this waking up for some reason.  When we got to church, this is where she headed to first.  It was not well-kept, as we missed church last weekend while on vacation.  But she immediately set out to wipe off the counter, straighten things a bit, and then filled up each of those trays on the left there with the different types of creamer available.  You can see from the photo above that she is quite proud of herself!

As for the service itself, we did go in the "tiny but mighty" direction with the visit of Scrappy the chihuahua.  While this may not be as impressive as the giant lizards or snakes of last weekend, or the exotic birds and monkeys the weeks previous to that, it was something altogether enjoyable for the kids and adults alike.  We spoke of our domestic friends, the dogs, and we talked a lot about the chihuahua, and how he has some very admirable characteristics.  As you can see, Madison got to meet Scrappy a few times - the two even had some fun back in the office:

After service, we spent some time helping prepare for KidPak Español, which was doing a service about keeping snakes out of the garden - sort of an 'Adam and Eve' message there.  

We got home and were about to take a rest, watching "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2," when guess who called?  Nana and Ba-Ba!  Believe it or not, they were almost here!  They left early enough, and didn't have the stop-and-go traffic that we tend to face on the way back, particularly in Henry County.  So they were almost here!

They arrived shortly afterwards, and it was a happy reunion, although we had just seen them less than a week ago in Florida.  We had dinner together, and showed off Madison's ballerina performance from the recital.  We also did some other catching up to, with conversations about school, and a new Goodwill opening in Dawsonville here - that's got the grandparents excited!

We played a bit of games for a while, as Nana and Ba-Ba went upstairs to rest from the long journey.  Madison and Daddy were playing a bit of "Toy Story 3," and added to our list of accomplishments of the day the task of defeating Zurg.  This is always a good thing.

But even without defeating Zurg, it was a good day across the board.  The weather is ideal, and the grandparents arrived safely.

Our original plan was to have the alpacas in service again this morning, but that fell through due to a flat tire on one of the trailers carrying the animals.  And yet the chihuahua service was exactly perfect for the morning.  Plus, everyone - all the kids and more - got shutter shades as a giveaway in their classrooms.

And Scrappy was a bit hit too, of course.

But Scrappy was scheduled for Wednesday - and that left a vacancy.  What to do about that?  Having watched "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," Daddy spoke with our friend, the officer who spends time at KidPak.  Her name is Monica, and she's a huge Disney fan herself - we were actually both in Orlando the same time last week.  In any event, we talked about getting a K-9 dog on stage Wednesday night, and guess what?  It's going to happen!  God is good - we'll have another amazing animal on stage this upcoming Wednesday.

We said our prayers tonight, and read from the Bible - and then from the Never Girls book:  Madison is really into this book now.  We're on chapter eight, and it appears as if we'll be reading from the following books soon as well.  They are written just right for Madison, with all kinds of imagination thrown in - she's enjoying this story before bed.

But this Neverland theme is one that is been ongoing, hasn't it?  This afternoon, Daddy challenged Madison to see what kind of lessons we could learn from the stories of Neverland - lessons we could preach at KidPak that have a point.  And right away she nailed one: "Think of a happy thought.  Any happy little thought."

Daddy smiled.  And we thought of some more points and more, brainstorming a bit together the beginnings of a new series... think of a happy thought!

"Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things." Philippians 4:8 NIrV