Catchup blog

Today is my birthday. I turned two today and Mike got me a bully stick and Meredith gave me a bone in honor of my special day. But I'll tell you more about that later. First, I'd like to apologize for the long hiatus of not posting. Since I feel I should make it up to you I'm going to 'catch you up' on the goings on in my life for the past 6 months in the form of haiku.
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My backyard has grass
I like to run in circles
oops-- dug a hole

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I am a big dog
The neighbor is a small dog
Mike won't let us play.
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My hypothesis:
Meredith's belly is so big
Therefore..... puppies!
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Katie came to visit
We drove to get the new couch
In a refrigerated truck.

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Kathy cleaned the house
Chris cooked mouth watering meals
what the.... a baby!?!?

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Finding ingredients in the Netherlands

The Dutch like to bake from mixes. Not so much from scratch. Therefore, finding ingredients like good quality flour for cookies can be a bit of a challenge. Sugar isn't as much of a problem because the Dutch love any coffee accoutrement, so there are many kinds of sugar at our local AH grocery store. Powdered sugar, however, is another story entirely. And forget about finding chocolate chips here!

Meredith and I checked out Eindhoven's Genneper Parken watermolen (water mill) to see what they had for baking. They claim to have over 400 kinds of flour! Well... not exactly. They've got 2 kinds of plain white flour: cookie flour (zeeuwse bloem) and bread flour (wit brood bloem). Many other kinds of flour blends exist like donker volkoren (I think this is a whole wheat flour blend) and mais bloem (corn flour- NOT corn meal). Most of the 'flours' are for baking a certain thing like cherry bread or peach bread. Of course you have to add the cherries or peaches!

The bunch of stuff we came home with:

Well, not the bag of Hershey's chocolate chips of course- they are only there for comparison's sake- we did find chocolate chips but they are the mini kind- "Bakvaste Chocoladedrupples". The good news is they are made from Callebaut chocolate (the best chocolate- not that I've tried it- doodle dogs are not allowed) the bad news is that little bag was 4.95 euros (about $7.00!).

And we found "Poeder suiker" which is real powdered sugar- not the bizarre flaky stuff they sell at AH (the tube container in the upper right corner of the photo above) that blows away when you breathe on it. We also found real rolled oats! Havermout is the Dutch word for oats, but the AH version is more like the quaker quick oats you find in the states.

Dutch Cake Event

Over the weekend Meredith and Mike went to the Dutch Cake Event. It entertained Meredith to no end. The event had vendors and a contest and a cute cafe for snacking in between. Most interestingly, the contest was for the appearance of the cakes. Each cake entered in the contest was not really a cake. No- it was a bunch of cardboard or foam decorated with fondant or gum paste or frosting or whatever. The entrants had to also submit a tiny real cake for the judges to taste- just to make sure they actually know how to bake a cake, we presume. The theme for this year was "music" so all the cakes reflect that in some way, although they could be in one of three categories: formed cake, tiered cake, or flowers.

As I'm only a dog I really don't know if this is normal for these sorts of contests or not. Meredith loves to bake and was attending to scope out the contest for next year. I'm not sure if she'll enter a card-board cake or not- it might be against her moral values.

Here is the grand prize winner:

And the goodies they gave each person attending:

It was 10 euros to get in. I didn't get to go because dogs weren't allowed.

Ice Ice Baby

Mike took me over to the pond to see if the ice has completely melted yet. It hasn't. He made me walk on it. I probably look more nervous than I need to be as the depth of the water here was only about 2 inches.

My conclusion is that the solid form of water is better than the liquid form. But only marginally so.

Whenever you need a little break, rest your head on a chair.

Snow week!

We got snow again! All the Dutch people here are astounded. They are not used to snow at all; in fact Mike and Meredith's Dutch language class on Monday (the day the snow arrived) was canceled because the teacher could not drive out of her street! Plows are few and far between around here. Of course being from upstate NY, M&M didn't think much of driving in the snow but people here are petrified...

We had a ball in the field near our house. Snow is my favorite thing, ever, so I was in full doodle-looping mode. The horses on the other side of the river even thought it was fun to race me back and forth along the river!

Of course I had plenty of snow cookies on my feet when I was finished. It was tough to get them all off once we went inside. I spent a long time eating the bigger ones. Yum.

What was interesting is that this entire week the snow has stuck around. Normally it melts within a day or so. We are so lucky!

That war last night

New Years Eve in Holland = Firework Display Extravaganza

Last night was really interesting. We all went over to one of Mike's colleague's house for drinks and food (and a little bit of one-year-old baby licking by me!) and fun. While we were there, I heard and saw fireworks out the front window occasionally. We came home before midnight and around 11:50pm the craziness really began. Meredith and Mike decided that I could sleep upstairs in their room because of all the loud booming sounds coming from our neighbors. I really wasn't scared at all, but it sure was nice to be able to see the color changing sky out the window for about 30 minutes or so. Right at midnight I swear it was as if a war was going on out there! We all watched in amazement as the entire sky was pink, yellow, blue, orange in every direction! Impressive!
Today I've been investigating the remnants of last night.

Don't worry, these were already boomified.

Yep, this is the street right outside our house. Crazy, huh!

Who cleans up all this mess?

We wish you a fuzzy Christmas

To me Christmas means:
Trees... indoors!!
the amazing smell of turkey wafting from the oven
guests! lots of fun people to play with
extra long walks with the guests
snuggle time
presents!

Let's talk about the presents. Okay, I admit, I had a Christmas wish-list. It included a new collar, a bunch of bully sticks and a new ball.
Here I am opening up my first gift:

Don't you know it?! It was a collar!

Next, I looked through lots of other bags, but none of these was for me.


I did get the bully sticks!

And the new ball I was hoping for? Well... I had to share it, but I didn't mind a bit.

Boy, was I a lucky doodle!
Merry Christmas, every one!

Christmas Tree!

We got our Christmas Tree last weekend and it is finally decorated!

It was challenging because the Dutch normally wait until after Sinter Klaas (Dec 6th) to get their Christmas trees. Even though it was difficult, Mike didn't give up the search and managed to find one at a garden store. It had a root ball, but it was no problem to chop that off before bringing it home.

Mmmmm. Now it smells like Christmas!

IKEA Weekend

Mike and Meredith brought home lots of boxes yesterday.

Our new car was full to the brim!

Today I had to supervise Mike putting everything together.

It was exhausting, but at least now there is furniture in our living room.

Moving Day

We've moved!

Today all our stuff arrived from the US of A. It was delivered to our house we'll be renting in Aalst. I had to stay in my crate all morning at the old apartment while the big move happened. It was for the best as I would have been a bit underfoot.

They got the mattress and box-springs through the upstairs window!

All the mover guys drank lots of coffee during the move. The Dutch love their coffee.

It smells like home now.

Amsterdam

Holy bunnies, I'm exhausted today. We had quite an adventure yesterday! First, we rode the train for a long time.

And we had to switch trains a lot. Meredith and Mike were amazed at the delays because they said it should have taken us 1 hour and 20 minutes to get here and instead it was almost 3 hours.

Once we arrived, we had a lot of fun with friends Lori, Brett, and my new friend, Holly.
We went to a dog park!

And it snowed there, too!!!
And Holly and I both got really dirty:

Holly knows how to come when she is called. I don't care to do such things. I'd rather run around until I'm good and tired. Only then will I decide to come.

We didn't see much of Amsterdam because we were a bit worried about getting home with the trains being all messed up. Unfortunately it took us another 3 hours to get home, and several trains, too. It was so cold on the platforms we were all snuggled together trying to keep warm. Once we got back to the apartment, Mike and I played in the snow.

Eindhoven got 3 inches of snow! I guess that's quite a big deal here!!

Hair cut again

Gah.

At least I get a treat in exchange for the torture:

Announcing: OUR FIRST SNOW FALL this season!

Oh my bunnies! It snowed here! Can you believe it?! It doesn't happen very often, so when it does, golly... we enjoy it.

We do whatever it takes to have fun in the snow:
For example, here I am goin' a little bit nutty:

And fetching snowballs:

New Car!

Meredith and Mike were so excited because they bought a new (used) car last night. I guess it is going to be ready in about a week.

Doesn't it look like fun? I can't wait to ride in the back seat!

GLOW

We went to GLOW in Eindhoven together. On the way we ate at a Greek restaurant that was very nice to me. They gave me water with a little bit of parsley on the side as a garnish. How sophisticated!
Here I am under the table:

We enjoyed GLOW a lot. The following videos are of various bits of the GLOW. First, you see me window shopping:


Next, you can see a couple of the fancy lighting displays:


This one was neat because they projected a moving scene onto the building. The portion in the video is supposed to be constellations, I think.

The Bark Theater

Here I am in front of the Bark Theater, one of my favorite places. I'm sure it's called that because they have lots of dogs around there.

As you can probably tell, I'm working on my expressive look. Meredith is the actor in the family but I believe I could do it too. Watch me bite the leash and jump:

Can you tell I'd be great on stage?

Beautiful Day

We went for a walk in the park today. It was a gorgeous fall day with the sun shining through the trees. Everything seemed possible.


Meredith and Mike are so happy they finally found a house to rent. It will not be close to this particular park, but will be close to fields and woods and other fun places for me to romp. Although I'll miss it here, I am sure we'll all be much happier in a house with a yard!