Belgium trip

Merry Christmas from Bruges!

We enjoyed our Belgium trip very much, eventhough it was exhausting but we were so happy to meet Miguel of the Of The Five Colors Sheltiekennel, my sweet little Miss Sipzie and her brothers and sister and some of their owners as well.

We left home on Friday 1:30am to catch the Ferry from Dover to Dunkerque. The Ferry crossing was at 4am, I thought it was the quietest time of the crossing but I was wrong. They were quite a lot of people on board and they were serving English Breakfast at that time!

The crossing was smooth (I was far asleep with my travel sickness pill so I don't really know the crossing was good or bad but I assume it was a good one.) We got to Dunkerque at 7am, their local time and drove straight into Bruges. We arrived at Bruges safely at 8:30am with the helpful Tom Tom that we borrowed from Vanessa.

We checked in at our hotel, the Flanders Hotel so we could park the car. We are not allow to go into our room before 2pm, that gave us a good opportunity to walk around the beautiful Bruges. The last time we went to Bruges must be nearly 7 years ago and it wasn't that cold, we were able to sit outside drinking Belgium beers and ate mussels but this time, it was freezing. We walked around admiring the beautiful scneries and every now and then hop into a coffee shop for some warm nice coffee and the tasty Belgian waffle.

Venice of the North

I like Bruges, it is known as the Venice of the North, the most beautiful cities in Europe! The Squares and Catherals are so beautiful. When we arrived on Friday, the Squares and Christmas markets weren't too busy at all, we can walk freely without knocking anybody. There is an ice skating ring on one of the squares, I was so tempted to go ice skating but when I looked around, there were young agile kids/teenagers whizzing around, I felt so old and embarrassed and decided not to join the kiddies.

this is one of the Chritsmas markets in the Square, behind those wooden halt, that is the ice skating ring

One thing that amazed me was we found too many chocolate shops in one street, many of them are open next to each other. I know Belgium is famous for chocolate but I think it is crazy to have so many chocolate shops in one street. I wanted to buy some chocolates but when I look at them, I really can't decide which one to go to and what to buy, so I come back empty handed and people asked me: Are you sure you've just came back from Belgium?

mouth watering chocolate fondue

I decided to have a white chocolate coated banana.

We were very happy with the Hotel, the service is brilliant and it has a nice size swimming pool, so Colin spent most of the time swimming while I catch up on sleep! We even have a little balcony over look the carpark but it was too cold to sit outside. The breakfast was very nice, Colin and I enjoyed a HUGE breakfast on Saturday morning!

Colin and his little mermaid at Het Zand, Bruges biggest open square

close up, what a happy man he is!

I wanted to go visit the famous Chocolate museum but Colin insisted we take the long walk to the Lake of Love:

I can't see anything special of this other than plenty of Swans!!!

I think Belgian are quite creative as well:

would you like a GIFT house?

one of the many Christmas decorations

more Christmas decoration

love this inflatable snowman sitting in front of the fire

willow tree full of lid up lantern

during our window shopping, we saw these:copper shoes!!!

Golden dog, he reminded me so much of Scout

Now, some puppies news ...

Migeul took the puppies and most of her adult shelties to Bruges to meet up with us on Saturday afternoon. Between us (Miguel, Colin and I), we took the five puppies and two shelties for a walk in Bruges. We forgot how busy it would be on Saturday but it was very good to get the puppies out and social. You can imagine all the attention the puppies get while we walked then around the sqaures and markets.

The puppy wagon. This is one amazing puppies carrier. I want one for Christmas!!!

puppies inside the wagon, that is handsome Ice (Iceman Of The Five Colors) looking up

Ike (Icarus Of The Five Colors) and Sipzie

introducing horse to Sipzie

On Sunday, we travel in Miguel's motorhome to a training school, about an hour away from his house. It is amazing to see some Belgian training their dogs. In the training school, they have their own pub/club house where they sells beers, drinks and food in the warm. They also fenced up a few different areas so people can train their dogs in different aspects. Colin has taken some photos of the training fields/areas but I am not going to include in this post, as it is getting such a long post with all the photos.

All the puppies are well socialised. They have been out and about since they are 3 weeks old. Sipzie and her brothers and sister are not afraid of anything, anyone can handle them. They also met other dogs at the training school and nothing put them off. All the five puppies are great tuggers too, boy! didn't they all have sharp teeth and sharp claws? They like to tug on my fleece sleeve and we have a good game of tug and you guess it. They win and I lost!!

puppies, puppies ...

how can I leave my dear little miss in Belgium!!! Surely this English rules need changing!!

I have to include this photo of Chiqi (ICQ Of The Five Colors), she is the other girl in that litter. She is very cheeky.

these are Miguel's shelties pack, left to right: Visi (England import), Ypra (Sipzie's mum), Jaimy, baby Idgy (England import) and Boyd (England import) and the beautiful bi-blue in front of Ypra is Jaimy's daughter Aily.

we are back

We are back from Belgium, exhausted but happy!

More news later, now enjoy these couple of puppies photos:

left to right: Chiqi, Ronin, Ice, Sipzie and Ike

left to right: Ronin, Chiqi, Ice, Sipzie and Ike

missing him

I miss my little Sizzle whizzle. I left him with his auntie Eleanor after our training this morning. I am sure he is enjoying following Igloo everywhere.

I love his cheeky self!

Sipzie

photos courtesy of Miguel:

Look at this innocent little face

with brother Ike

maybe I should teach her to go IN the tunnel instead of jumping onto the tunnel, hahaha ...

good balancing on the mini A Frame

target already?

Now, stop taking anymore photos of me!

separation anxiety!

I feel like I am more attach to my dogs than they are to me!

Christmas is in the corner, so far we have a couple of nights out to meet up with friends that we only see once a year! Leaving the dogs at home prove to be very difficult to me. I know we only go out for 5 to 6 hours the most, still, I don't feel comfortable without my dogs! My second nephew and my little friend Ling are staying with me, so they are there for them whenever we are away. The dogs still have some company in their own comfort home but I am not happy. I WANT to be with my dogs, ALL THE TIME!

I already feel the separation anxiety in me before we leave for Belgium! These dogs are just fantastic to live with and fun to go out walking with and they are all eager to please me when we try to learn something!

is this Samber?

is this Samber?

No ... she is Skye

Jolanda and Skye came to visit today. We had a nice long walk in the Common. Skye is a little loonie when she sees her mama Samber. She just wouldn't leave her alone, she wanted to play with Samber all the time. It is actually very nice to see them playing.

Skye with her parents

seasons photos from the youngsters

We managed to put up our Christmas tree yesterday. I wanted to take some photos of the dogs around the Christmas tree as the sunlight was really good but just haven't have time to do so, we seems to rush here and there this weekend! It is good to have the Christmas tree up to make me feel Christmas is coming ...

Saturn was very suspicions why his daddy bring a tree in the house!

We received this Christmas Stocking from Rachel as a pressie from winning a photo competition. Here is Sizzle showing off his "hold" skill he learns recently.

I went Christmas shopping a couple of weeks ago and bought this funny costume, didn't Samber looks cute in the photo with her Christmas costume?

I will try to post more photos of the gang later when I have a chance to take the photos.

drive

Someone was talking to me recently, she said: your English shelties has no drive!

I said to her: Of course my English shelties has drive, they drive me nuts!

I remembered last year, I was chatting to a few people at agility shows, they also tell me: your English shelties has no drive. I was very upset then but not anymore!

this happy bunch drive me nuts all the time!!!

winter morning and crazy shelties!!

After the rain stop this morning, we have a few hours of sunshine so we could take the dogs out to the Common for a good walk. Eventhough the sun was shinning but the temperature was quite low. My crazy shelties just loved the water!!

I can't stop Sizzle swimming in the pond!

Sing is very jealous that he is not allow to swim! Look at his grumpy face.

Saturn just loved running in the water chasing his coots!!

counting down ...

Little Miss Sipzie is 7 weeks old today. I am counting down the day to meeting her ...

very excited! Can't wait!!

picture is courtesy of Miguel