It came to my attention yesterday that there is a new bill going before the Ohio General Assembly to ban the owning of Pit Bulls in the state of Ohio. Not just the banning of future adoptions and breedings, but banning in the sense that anyone who currently owns a Pit Bull would have to relinquish the animal to the state for euthanasia. Now I don’t know about all of you, but if I owned a Pit Bull, I would sooner move out of the state of Ohio before I would allow them to take my pet, my family member, and kill him/her just for being born. This is a violation of freedom. Seriously…where do we draw the line?

It is unfortunate that ignorance has lead people to try to put a band-aid on a giant gaping wound instead of trying to deal with the root of the problem. Banning Pit Bulls is not going to solve anything. Pit Bulls are loving, loyal, and affectionate dogs. It is cruel owners who mistreat them that turn some into aggressive, fighting machines. It is not the nature of the breed to be mean.

For those of you that agree with me, please sign this petition to stop this bill. One of the biggest reasons for this law is that there are a great deal of people who are not educated about the breed and make sweeping assumptions. Here is some very unbiased information to help you better understand this breed - the United Kennel Club breed information on the American Pit Bull Terrier.

Matt and I celebrated our 4-year anniversary last night. It was a very nice relaxing evening. We ate at this totally awesome restaurant in West Chester called Soho Japanese Bistro. We sat at the hibachi and got to watch our food being made. It was quite entertaining. And the food was absolutely amazing. I had to stop myself from finishing my plate because I wanted to have some left over for lunch today. We sat with 2 other couples. One couple had just gotten married about a year ago and was 7 months pregnant. The other couple seemed way more interested in their cell phones than the total awesomeness that was happening right in front of them. Seriously, who goes to a hibachi grill only to spend the entire time on their cell phone? Watching your food being made is half the fun.

Then we moved on to Barnes and Noble to give our tummies time to settle before dessert. Matt found this great book called The Mutt Book. It takes you step by step through trying to figure out what the heck kind of dog you have anyway!! Although we found like 10 different things that our two could be, we didn’t land on any type of dominant breed by any means.

Then we finished off our night at Applebee’s for drinks and dessert. I love me some Chocolate Martinis!

Anyhoo…it was a great night and much needed. Sometimes we get ourselves so busy that we don’t take a lot of time for each other. Last night was a good reminder that that needs to be done more often. And yay for 4 years!!!

Matt and I are very involved with a ministry called Compassion International. It’s an organization that exists as a child advocacy ministry to release children all over the world from poverty and help them to grow into responsible and fulfilled adults. We have sponsored children through Compassion now for nearly 3 years. It has been an amazing experience to be connected with a child half-way across the planet. We are currently sponsoring a 6-year-old boy from Kenya named Mamuu. He is bright, sweet, energetic, and absolutely thrilled that someone on another continent cares about him enough to make a commitment to sponsor him!

Part of Compassion’s ministry is Compassion Sunday. It’s an event that is held once a year in churches across the globe to help draw more attention to the needs of children in impoverished areas of the world. Our church had their Compassion Sunday event the first Sunday in May. While we were able to find sponsors for some children, we still have seven who are in need of finding sponsors. If you would like to see photos of these children and a little bit of info on each one, please visit our Compassion Blog. These child packets expire on June 9th. So there is a bit of urgency in this matter. If you are even remotely interested in sponsoring one of these kids, please send me an email with your address and which child you are interested in and I will mail you their child packet. And if you have any questions about Compassion or our experiences with the organization, please ask! We will gladly share.