Louie Gifted Micah Magic for His Birthday

I'm writing this as I sit at a water park, watching the family have a great time. Oddly, this is how I enjoy myself. I'm not so much a do-er, I guess, especially when it comes to water. I love, however, watching the kids laugh as they have fun together. I consider this down time for me, because I can't just sit and do nothing. I'm relaxing, and this weekend away is very much needed. It was a Christmas present to the kids, and we waited until Sam had a 3 day weekend to utilize it so that he didn't have to take a day off work.

He saves vacation days for spontaneous things that may come up. Apparently, these kind of things happen frequently in our family. I have a story about this. Of course.

A friend asked the other month if I was attending Global Pet Expo in Orlando this spring. I replied that I would love to, but it just wasn't in the budget since we were saving our pennies to make a family vacation of attending BlogPaws in Phoenix this year. I'd thought of Global off an on in a "wonder how that could benefit the business" kind of way, but that's the extent of it.

A few weeks ago, a friend referred me to a business that was looking to add collars and bow ties to their store. I received my first wholesale order from this contact, and was totally stoked. (Says the 80's girl in me.) As I was dancing jigs over the first real step into the huge world of commerce, I had another opportunity to come up.

Within an hour of my largest order to date, I saw an ad looking for a french bulldog to model at the Global Pet Expo. The dog needed to be cute, be okay with wearing clothing, and would be compensated with a stipend. Of course I responded to the ad. Louie would be the perfect dog for this, and the stipend he would receive would pay for about half the trip. I could justify the other half easily as a business trip, and was beyond excited to have the opportunity to attend Global this year.

You guys, this small yellow dog of mine has been used by God in such amazing ways. It's just humbling. And I get to sit back and enjoy the benefits of watching it all.

Sam came home from work the next day with a grin on his face. "Where did you say you'd be for this expo?," he asked. He had a plan. He rearranged his schedule to work double shifts at the beginning of the week and take a day of vacation to cover for the last few hours, and he'd go with me to Orlando.

Micah has been asking to go back to Disney for a solid year now. He'll get our photo books out and pore over them for hours, reminiscing and reliving, and asking yet again if he can go to the most magical place on earth. We just couldn't justify a trip to the park for a family vacation, but a weekend at the park since we'll be in Orlando anyway is completely do-able.

These are things Sam saves vacation days for.

Micah's birthday is March 3rd. Because of the expense of the park (egads, it's expensive), this will be his gift from us. He is clueless at this point, but next week he's going to be SO EXCITED. I have a plan in place. Micah can read far better than I realized he could, so I'm writing a note that says, "I'm going to Disney!" and taping it on the box with his tickets. When he unwraps that at his birthday party, I'll be videoing the magic. Being able to gift Micah with this kind of fun is only thanks to God using a little yellow dog, and we just get to sit back and experience the awe.