May 10th...Zion is home with Trapper in Fairbanks, AK.

It is Sunday. At around 4 am our children were awake....because it is not only light outside, but we are on Ohio time. So to them it is 8 am. This could be a rough week with very little sleep.

Happy Mother's day, too! I feel like I have a new child, his name is Zion.:)

We actually fought getting up until about 5:30am, then we stated breakfast, unpacking, emails & such. We got ready for church, but missed the 9 am service. The 11 am service is very big & busy. We thought we would take Zion, but I left him in the car to ask again. I had asked prior to our family even moving to Fairbanks. I found the church on-line & thought it sounded like a great community of people. I wrote a letter explaining our family dynamic & how it would change to include a service dog in the spring. I received an encouraging reply and Welcome...but the person I originally wrote to decided that it needed to be brought to a meeting again as Zion would not be with Trapper @ all times. Trapper can be in the nursery/children church without him depending on how many children are in the nursery. Rob & I are the trained handler's. So we expected Trapper & his Zion to sit with us during the music part of service and then we would talk Trapper to his class room & Katie to her's. Then Zion would sit with us during the service. However, we were not greeted with a welcome today as it was not clear why the dog would be needed if the child wasn't with him. For anyone who may see this the same way....think about these things. The dog needs to continue being around public places, eventually Trapper will sit in the entire service with us (we hope) & Zion will be completely familiar with where he is. It is fairly loud & the service is close to 1,000 or more at the 11 am service. This is excellent training for Rob & I and great continuation of social situations for Zion. Plus, it stays around 80 F in the summer in Fairbanks & can dip below -40F in the winter. I will not be leaving Zion in the car from here on out. So, I either have to figure out who to talk to @ our church (we are new to town really, our church family that helped us raise money for Zion is in Skagway, Alaska). So we will be finding another church family if they feel strongly about Zion's presence in church service. We really do like our church though, so the thought is sad. Church is not held to Laws in place for the American's with Disabilities Act. The reason is the separation of Church & State. All other places of public access are required to allow access to a service dog by law. However this is where compassion & acceptance in a church body comes in. So we will see.
After Church service, Rob ran into Lowe's to get some posts for the play center he is building for the kids. Then we went home and got busy on projects. Rob leaves in just a few days for a conference in Florida. We hope to get some tracking practice in while he is here.

Thank you to all of you who have continued to keep up with my post. Sorry I am a person of many, many words.:)