Disneyland Shopping Trip

We made a quick trip down to Disneyland, mostly to go shopping. I wanted the new Dooney and Bourke Disneyland bags but the ones they had were disappointing. I made a few other purchases though, including a picture of the Mad Hatter (as portrayed by Johnny Depp) to put near my sewing things. It's an excellent photo. Below is a picture of the ceremonial flag retreat.

We stayed in my favorite hotel room and this was my and Belle's view of the fireworks from my bed. Nice, right?
We also decided to go to Club 33 and invited some friends along. Belle was SO excited she couldn't keep her eyes open!

Isn't she beautiful in the Court of Angels?

My Pina Colada at the Club. It was so nice to settle down and have a drink.
I went with the pasta this time and it was fabulous. I loved the short rib bolognese and the mushroom marinara. I was not in love with the goat cheese veloute. The bread was, as always, great and almost my favorite part. I like the garlic olive oil with the balsamic vinegar. Yum!
We met Mickey Mouse and Pluto and they really loved Belle. Pluto was painfully jealous though. Mickey spent nearly twenty minutes playing with Belle! The characters always go the extra mile with the dogs. Mickey kept signing that "I 'heart' her." It was so sweet. Someone was an obvious dog lover.
I had a lemon puff but also had my favorite coffee and a chocolate cake. I put a chocolate stick in the cup to add to the flavor.
Mickey saw us again as we went shopping at the Club and sat down to play with Belle. Belle, as you can tell, did not mind the attention. People were jealous of Belle's attention but she's gorgeous. I bought the Mouse ears with the gold "33" on them and a purse hook. I felt bad because I took the last pair of Gold ears, but I already had the silver ones! I did the same thing last year when I got the last scarf. Ooops.
Belle's picture in front of the Club. This is her third trip to the Club so it's becoming old news to her but I still have fun.

Lacey is 4!!!!

Lacey turned 4 and she is so happy about it. She is going to celebrate her birthday with a student's class. They will hold a birthday party for her and they get to see all the amazing things she can do for the young man she works with. I am so proud of how far she has come since I picked her up at 1o months old.

Happy Birthday, Lacey!

I would've posted this sooner but I was at Disneyland and the Internet at the hotel is slow.

Happy Birthday, Yancie!

Yancie is the big 7! She is the only one of her siblings to have graduated as a service dog and I couldn't be prouder of my "psycho puppy". She is from a litter that was bred from Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael. She was the pick of the litter and brought to CCI. One of her sisters went on to be a breeder for GDB.

She is such a love bug and hope she is having the best birthday with Jessie and Gayla. She lives near San Jose and I get to here from her often.

Happy Birthday, Boo Bear! I love you!

Genevieve's Report

Genevieve is in Advanced Training right now and I FINALLY got her progress report! (I asked for it after a while and they found it. :eyeroll:)

She is doing great though! Woo. They say she is highly motivated. (That dog would run into high traffic for a treat.) She has "low response" to "novel stimuli". Really? Once you've lived in my house for a few months and done everything she's done there's nothing that shocks you after a while. LOL. She is still up for a breeder and is in good health. She doesn't like correction but that's normal to me, she's a sensitive dog. She also plays well with others! I don't think any of my dogs have been marked "plays well with other dogs" in the first report. I think it's because I don't let them play with other dogs a lot because I don't have many dogs in the area that I trust. Now that I have Belle though she helps determine polite play for the puppies.

Belle is doing great and Weather is just excited to be alive. I don't think that dogs tail EVER stops wagging. It's odd.

Weather graduated from "Petsmart" last week. I take her there for socialization and she gets to work around other dogs. However, she trains at a totally different level than the other dogs. I think I will enroll Belle in the next course so that Wei-Wei has someone else who trains at her level. One cool thing they do is they give us a little hat to "graduate" with. She's cute right? And, of course, she is the most compliant dog about wearing the hat.

I am also growing plants! I am working on making the backyard more dog friendly. Here's my gnome guarding my little plants.

Wei-Wei and Beana update!

Wei-Wei (aka Weather) is now 5 months old and very excited about that fact. She continues to be a sweet and cuddly puppy who loves to please. She's a little unsure of herself but doing well overall.

Somedays she loves her cow and will spend a lot of time sucking on it, much like her half-brother Pismo.

Other times... her cow is put in time out. She purposefully strode over there, set her cow down, and went back to her bed. I still don't know what the cow did.

Her water bowl is a source of fascination.

Belle is growing into an elegant dog and she still plays very nicely with her stuffies. One day I'll put up the videos of her doing her extra tricks. She has finally mastered opening the fridge and is currently working on pulling open the backdoor. That has become a useful trick with all the work I do back there. And of course the ever useful "fetching the remote".

Belle may not have liked her in the beginning but she likes her much more now.

EMS Introduces Trained Dogs to Cut Costs

Canines have been used for police work, search & rescue, tracking, service dogs, and a variety of other tasks. Now they’re assisting EMS and doing so at a much lower cost.

See their new employees at work!

Breathe, damn you, breathe!

There's your laugh for the day.

Taken from Just One More Pet.

Quick Trip to Disneyland

Last Wednesday, my mom decided that we needed to take the world's quickest trip to Disneyland. We took my visiting cousins, grandma, and two dogs. While on the trip we celebrated Ava and Sammie's birthdays. They were both excited to wear their "Happy Birthday" buttons and get many comments from cast members throughout the weekend. I guess we could call this trip a "Princess Trip" but with me on it? Not really.

I was excited to find out that these kids were brave ones. They were ready to completely skip the "baby" rides for the big ones like Big Thunder and Space Mountain. The first ride, as always, was Pirate's of The Caribbean. Then we moved over to Big Thunder. The kids were sad to see that the Matterhorn had closed.

See what you did Disneyland? You made a little girl sad! And on her birthday weekend! Her sister is not a good actress and could not stop smiling.

All of us on Space Mountain, Sam hadn't arrived yet. Notice their hands up?

After a few more rides, we rode the top story of the Omni bus around the park.

After a break at the hotel, we went over to Disney's California Adventure.

On the first day, we went on the Hollywood Tower of Terror. The girls still didn't love the ride but went on it without crying or complaint. That's all I ask.

After riding, we went over to California Screamin' and Ava, despite her initial fear, loved it. The photo we had was of her looking over at me, asking if she could "do it again!" We went on a few more rides before heading back to the hotel. We met some online friends too.

We went to Club 33 for lunch and it was very good and had the same great server from last time. The kids (grandma and mom too) were very well behaved.

Ava was so surprised by her birthday cake, to share with Sam. The look on her face was so worth it. They blew out the candles and the poor waiter kept trying to keep them all lit while we sang to the kids. When asked who deserved the biggest of the little slices, Josie raised her hand. LOL.

Belle up on the Club balcony.

Up in Club 33 the girls took a picture in front of Walt's picture of him in the club.

We went on a few rides.

We went on several rides throughout the day before I headed back to the hotel for a short break and it began to downpour. I headed back out and met the family in DCA for 3 rides in a row of California Screamin'.

Another great picture after getting off of the Jellyfish Jumper. The excitement on Josie's face was worth it to endure that mild humiliation. She thought it was a great ride.

We went back over to Disneyland to ride a few more rides but we eventually headed home.

While waiting for the Club to send out cake to City Hall, the girls went over to get a picture with Mickey and Minnie.

On the last day of the trip, we decided to make that day a "shopping day". I stayed on Main Street, with it's light traffic and quiet atmosphere, Weather would get an experience. It was a quiet morning so she went. She was beautifully behaved and had a great time. We went into two stores and she kept her nose to herself and even laid down while I browsed.

This is her first of many entrances into the park.

The most interesting things Weather saw were two ducks and the horse. She was very good at just watching them walk on by. She was curious but sat and watched quietly.

We walked down to the castle to take the picture and then went back to Main Street.

On our way out of the park, we saw Cruella DeVil and I just had to stop to take a picture. Weather, of course, never meets an enemy.