New Year's EVE

I spent my New Year's Eve on a mountain!! Since I am not fond of the BOOM BOOM BOOM's from fireworks and am deathly afraid of firecrackers, mum and two of her friends decided to take me up to Cypress Mountain for New Year's Eve. There was a New Year's Eve bon fire and BBQ special going on up there.

Mum and I took this picture before heading up the mountain as it would've been our last picture taken in Vancouver before 2007.



We got to Cypress a little after 7:00pm, and even though it was already dark, the trails were still quite visible due to all the snow.



I am naturally more protective of mum when it's dark, so I walked relatively close to her; none of that off trail romping like I did on my X-mas romp.

(gotta cover up the evidence)

Mum got me a new set of boots, but as you can see from the first picture, she didn't put them on at first because she didn't want to lose them in the dark. However, after a little while, seeing how icy the trail was (one of her friends fell because it was so slippery), she decided to put them on me. While mum was kneeling down putting my boots on, an older couple walked by and they approached mum. They seemed nice, but they were approaching MY mum who was in a kneeling position nonetheless. You see, I get very protective of mum when she's in a vulnerable position (ie, sitting down, lying down, kneeling down, etc), and I will always step in between mum and the approacher be it a hooman or dog. So I gave out a low growl, not the mean Grinch machine growl, but just enough to let them know that I was watching over MY mum. Mum quickly stood up and said hi to the couple, and much to my surprise, the lady gave me a light pet on the head and told me I was a good girl protecting my hoomans (okay... I was only really protecting mum, but ok). As it turned out, they had an Airedale years ago, and their Airedale was protective just like me. They missed their Airedale so much and hadn't been able to get another dog since.

Anyway, after the never ending conversation regarding "Airedales", I was finally able to continue my walk.




There was a big group of Aussies, not the shepherd kind, but the hooman kind. They were walking just ahead of us.


The Aussie hooman pups were sooo excited to see snow, they even brought their own snow carpets to slide down the trail with. There was one hooman pup that made the most impression with me. His name was Austin, and he gave me the name "Flashing Dog" (due to my light). He and I first met while he was sliding down a part of the trail. He was yelling and screaming as he was coming down, and I thought he was in distress. So I had to go see, you know, stood right in the path of the speeding carpet sled. Austin rolled off his carpet just before hitting me, and ever since he did that, he started telling everybody "I saved that flashing dog's life!!!"

His dad asked him, "you mean he would've died if you hadn't done whatever you did?"

Austin said an affirmative, "YES!"

Mum and her friends thought he was a hoot, so did his parents and a lot of other people. I'm just thankful he jumped out of the sled in time, and my life wasn't cut short. Whew.....

(Sorry, no pictures, mum didn't want to be seen as a pedophile taking pictures of hooman pups.)


We continued our walk towards Hollyburn Lodge where the bon fire and BBQ was being held. At about mid way to the lodge, mum and her friends took me on a little detour to play in the snow for a bit.

I um..... kind of miscalculated the arrival of this particular snow ball.....



The following two pictures were taken for you to combine. So please combine the two when you're looking at them.



And then, guess what we found!! A little cabin!



There were people in there doing stuff that made mum and her friends back away in a crouched position. I, on the other hand, had no problem standing tall.

On our way back to the main trail, I caught a scent and started sniffing for what it seemed like ever. Mum snapped a few random shots of me sniffing while she was waiting. Look at this picture closely,



This is a close up of the foot prints you saw around me in the last picture,


Now tell me, are those foot prints of a canine?


Anyway, we finally reached Hollyburn Lodge,



Where the FOOOOOD was,



This was the bon fire, well after it was put out....


Mum thought the lighting was good enough up at the lodge, so she turned her flash off. Unfortunately, most of her pictures turned out to be big blurs (shhh.... mum's mad at herself). She snapped this photo just before we left and actually forgot to turn the flasher off LOL.

It was a lot of fun up at the lodge, I ate half of mum's burger, and a quarter from each of her friends. If I did the math correctly, I think I ate a whole burger. *self applauds*

I went to check out the hoomans inside the lodge,



Then, out of no where, I heard, "HEY, that's the flashing dog again, I saved his life!!!"

YUP, Austin, the hooman pup and his group of hoomans made it up to the lodge too. He and the other hooman pups started a snowball fight, and I joined in on the fun. (mum: self invited.)

This was me guarding my front,



Even tho Austin said I was on his team, I was sort of um... on everybody's team except the snowballs'. I just went after all the snowballs that were being thrown.



That Austin pup, I think self appointed himself as my guardian Angel because he got really upset at another hooman pup when his snowball accidentally hit my muscle butt. Austin told the other hooman pup, "He could've died!!" and ran off to tell his parents.

Mum thought he was hilarious, but she did make me leave the game because she didn't want further arguments between the hooman pups. I was tired anyway, so I napped the bench next to mum while she and her friends chatted away with strangers. How they could do that, I have no idea, I ignore strangers.

Finally, it was countdown time, I think I heard them shout 10-5-7-3-8-2-9-4-6-1 ... or maybe in a different order, I was asleep on the bench. WOW, I slept into 2007!!!

Mum took some pictures during the countdown, but they didn't turn out either without the flash.

Everybody started to head down the mountain shortly after the countdown because the lodge was closing. It was time to take the party some where else!! We did a bit more exploring in the woods,



and Mum and I took on last shot together before getting in the car

(yeah ok, I was getting pretty tired... I was on the mountain for almost 5 hours)

I wasn't the only one tired, mum's friends were planning on going to a New Years celebration after our mountain adventure, but they went home instead because they had no energy left.

On our way home mum and I drove down Robson Street, Vancouver's premier shopping and entertainment street.



What was really strange was my SunshadeMOBILE and all her buddies were talking A LOT. Usually when they talk, they are not always nice, but tonight was a little different.... I think they had a lot to say about 2006.

I wasn't too sure at first about this whole Mobile-talking thingy,



But I got used to it, and decided to join in on the fun so I stuck my head out the window to watch all the crazy hoomans go by

Now that silly guy you saw at the end of the video, he had the gut to approach MY car. Just because I didn't try to eat him while he was making weird poses from afar didn't mean I wasn't gonna if he came close. Mum had to shut my window and told him to GO AWAY!!! YOU GO MUM!!!


2006 in Review:

2006 was a SPECIAL year for me. My health was great, and I started blogging!! I am so happy to have started blogging because I have met so many GREAT friends from all over the world. I'm also glad I started blogging because, to be honest, if any of you were to meet me in person, you probably won't like me that much because I am extremely aloof to people not part of my pack. However, blogging has allowed all of you to see me through mum's eyes. What I do when I'm at home with my mummy, all the inside scoops!

I have had the bestest Birthday and X-mas so far because of all of you, and to finish my year off with the X-mas Card Exchange was just icing on the cake!!

So THANK YOU ALL for making this such a special year for me, and I look forward to having lots more happy years with all of you!!

HAPPY 2007 EVERYBODY!!!