blessing of the animals

OK.. leave it to me, I am always doing "the different thing".. so when I saw that today was the Sunday of "blessing of the animals"... I was pretty certain that Mocha needed to be blessed. Moxie was blessed a number of years ago, and I have always felt that it was a very special thing. I convinced Kassy and Sadie to join me with Charlie and Tatter, and of course, Moxie came to... it's good to re-new your blessing!!!

After a perfect week of weather, wouldn't you know that it turned off cool and wet this morning. I wondered if they would still do the blessing, and called the church, but no answer. So, we decided to head out anyways, and just see. I could have trailered Mocha down, but wasn't sure where I would park, and it was just as easy to walk. Talk about stopping traffic.... it got so we all just started saying "yes, it's a horse" as people drove by and took a second look.

When we got to church, we were told that the services had been moved inside. I thought, "no way am I bringing Mocha into the church" so I asked Rev. Blair if she would just do the blessing outside, and then I would wait for everyone outside with Mocha. Well, nothing doing... Mocha was invited into the church with everyone else!!!!!! I decided to take the chair closest to the door... just in case, but I have to brag here..... she was better behaved than some of the dogs!!!! and actually, at one point I looked and she was resting one foot and had dozed off!!!! Needless to say, everyone was quite taken with her, and no one was that surprised to see me with a horse!!! (In fact, 80% of the dogs in church have been my students!!!!!)

As I said, Charlie, Tatter and Moxie went with us... I would have like to bring everyone, but managing that crew with Mocha probably would have been a little much.... even for me!!!!

Here is Kassy and Charlie with Rev. Blair.... Charlie sported his Marine coat, and made sure that everyone knew that his "Daddy" is in Iraq!!! They had a nice prayer for our troops this morning as well.

It was a lovely service, aside from Mocha and various dogs, a little boy brought his two hermit crabs, and a little girl brought her two stuffed sheep...... and between you and me, I think animals added to the service and it should be done a lot more often!!!!!! "Thank you Lord, for the animals that bring so much to out lives".......