K-9

Tonight we had a final visiting animal for our "Get Wild" series - his name was Kreso.  Nobody knows how he got this name.  Seriously, the owner of the dog has no idea.  He looked it up, and apparently it is something from an Eastern European country, but that's about it.  Regardless, he was a fascinating visitor.  I'm not talking about the human officer above, of course - although he was interesting too.  I'm referring to the German Shepherd, a K-9 officer with Hall County.  Did you know he has a badge?  That's right, he has his own badge number.  He's a bomb dog, trained to detect any of the twenty-six different odors that lead him (and his partner) to a component used to make explosives.

Tonight, just before service, we placed some C-4 on the stage, just below the screen.  Officer Monica was keeping her eye on it the whole time to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere.  And when Kreso and his human handler came out, he immediately found the C-4 on the stage.  It's a good thing too - we didn't want our KidPak stage blowing up just yet.

But the interview was fascinating to all the kids - and to the adults too.  Madison was there in the audience to see the bomb dog, so she along with the others learned a thing or two about the life of a police dog.  For example, there are bomb dogs and there are drug dogs - two different trainings.  There are tracking dogs too, although bloodhounds have a greater ability there.  Kreso is a remarkably smart dog, and quite a playful one too!

After service today, Daddy got to pose with the two officers, and thank them a whole lot for their appearance today.  Meanwhile, Madison was learning from Ms. Halston one last lesson from animals, about working together, two by two.  It all tied together in the end, just the way we like it!

When all the kids were leaving, it was time to say another goodbye:  to our set.  Sure, we could have used some of that C-4.  But instead, we opted to use human hands.  Smaller human hands, of course - we had lots of help from our junior workers as we dismantled all the styrofoam from the stage, tearing the old temple down.  This set has been with us for three months now, dating all the way back to the beginning of Summer Xtreme.  We were getting kind of sentimental about it!

Even Madison was helping take the set down tonight.  She's such a helper.  And yes, she made sure that coffee station was in good shape too.  Madison wasn't asked to help out - she just naturally wants to help others do things.  Which is such a blessing to see!

Today she went to the other Goodwill locations on the east side, Oakwood and Buford.  She went there with the grandparents, who again probably look forward to these destinations the way we do SeaWorld or Disney World when traveling to Orlando.  There is just something about thrift shops!

It was a good day anyway.  Madison was excited about going to church tonight, although sadly there are only a few more Wednesday nights left to attend for her, considering the school season is starting very soon.

Amazingly the temperature outside is dropping as if it is fall.  Here we are - again in July - and yet we're thinking "fall" thoughts as the temperature today was 75 at around 1:00, and much cooler at night.  School isn't supposed to start this early, and the cooler weather isn't supposed to come in this early - it's doing something to our psychology here!