A Part of the Whole: Meet...

I wanted to say something about this earlier this week, but wanted to wait until we were totally sure this was going to come to pass, but we added to our family this week. Yes, we have clearly lost our minds. Meet Minga.

You know, there are just some things you do as a parent because of the benefits for your kids. We have always felt strongly that kids need a pet. There are so many life lessons wrapped up in taking care of, loving, doing what's best for the animal when you're not in the mood. Lessons about life and death that are important. And with three boys, well, it just seemed like a boy needs a dog, right? Plus my husband has always wanted a dog to follow him everywhere, to play fetch with, and to take for rides in the car. I said to him today, "Wouldn't it be fun if you could take her to camp once in a a while?" To which he had this big goofy grin and said, "Yeah!"

A bit more about this chica. She is about 8 or 9 weeks old golden retriever pup. She was given to our landlady, who already had a dog and wasn't crazy about adding to the mix. Noah had been praying that God would show us the right timing for a puppy, and I think he even prayed something like, "Lord, if you want us to have one now, have a puppy show up on our doorstep." This was pretty stinking close. She is the right breed, the right age and the right price, free!! We also discovered there is an animal rescue just a few minutes down the road and they have a pet store and a vet. We stopped by there today and learned that spaying will only be about $16! That's great!

We have been telling the boys for over a year now we would get a dog when we got settled. Last year on our walks to and from school the boys would look at different dogs from their stroller and say things like
'Oooh, I like that dog!" Or " We don't want a dog like that!"

People have asked about her name. Well, last year, when Elliot (then 2 1/2) learned the song Bingo, he came home and told us he wanted to name a dog Mingo. In Spanish, "o" endings usually are masculine, so we thought we should change it to Minga. So, nothing terribly significant, but fun non the less.