Back in February I had to write a post that was very hard to write, but I needed to. It helped with the grieving process for me. The title of the post was “Why can’t we take away their pain and put in its place the good memories” and it was about the loss of our puppy Midge.

We didn’t want to immediately replace Midge because that would make the kids think we were doing exactly that...replacing Midge and we felt the kids needed time to grieve before getting a new family pet.

Well, about a month ago the kids approached us about getting a new pet and we knew they were ready. So, we looked around and thought we had an idea what we wanted, but after I commented on a post here in the rain, about how cute their pet was, a turn of events that I didn’t expect started to happen.

You see, my online friend Wanda Kubat-Nerdin is about to become my real life friend and I guess in a weird way… a Family member! After I wrote about how cute her pet was and that my wife and I have thought about getting a pig for the last 15 years or so, she e-mailed me and told me that they just had piglets and if I wanted one she would give us one.

So, next Sunday my family and I are packing up the car and heading to Southern Utah and picking up our new family member… Athena!