Dog Splash

 Thats me, at the Dog Splash. 

We played in the baby pool. It was a lot of fun, but it always is with Bell.

 The dog splash was on Sunday at the University's outdoor pool. Humans were free but dogs were $5. I was super overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. For a while I just ran around the pool and checked everything out. But then I found my bff Bell;

Bell's owner John brought a dummy we had fun running after it together. Can you guess who got it first in this photo?

 Bell got it this time! She is getting fast! I am getting a little less clumsy but I fall still.

Well after a while I got up the courage to jump into the pool from the ledge. I was a little nervous but I really wanted to save mommy from the water, so I did it, I jumped in! And once I got it, it was a lot of fun! When we got home on Sunday I was so tired I fell asleep right away! What a great weekend!

Vet visit/Sokol Park

Today I went to the vet. For whatever reason the vet does not take appointments, they are only walk ins. Last time we went, we didn't have to wait too long. But today, today was a different story, mom and I had to wait probably an hour for me to get 2 shots. Hmff

I really wouldn't have mind too much if mom would have let me play with all the dogs that were also waiting. But she kept me on my leash and close to her. I was not impressed. 

The vet visit reminded me of the last visit, later that day we went to one of my favorite parks and I got a little sick. My tummy did not feel good at all. But today I figured I would share some photos of me at the park. 

Sokol Park has lots of different trails. Mostly mountain bike trails but we see lots of runners and walkers as well. I love being in the woods; where it's nice and cool, lots of sticks for me to chew on, and lots of smells for me to sniff out. I love the creek because I can get a drink of water. This picture is a little old I am way bigger now! 26lbs now!

 I love running off my leash because I run really fast ahead of mom and dad. If they can't see me they whistle and I stop and wait for them, gosh they are slow.

I am almost pointing here. I love listening and watching everything, to see what I can chase. I point a lot at all sorts of things. Recently I have enjoyed pointing and hunting bugs in the evening. I concentrate very hard to see them and pounce of them.

So that is Sokol park, we probably go there 2 or 3 times a week. But as the days are getting shorter we will have to make it earlier or we wont be able to see. Next time I will tell you all about my swimming adventures in the University of Alabama Arboretum.

My BFF

Bell and I taking a break for a picture

Here at Rivermont there are a lot of dogs. There are lots of different types of dogs; big, small, friendly, unfriendly, loud and quite. But my Best Friend Forever is Bella, aka, Bell. She is a miniature golden doodle who is about a week older then me. When I first got here I was a little nervous about all the big dogs around (but not anymore, I like playing with everyone). Bell and I got along really well because we were both small and we have lots of puppy energy. 

 

Usually Bell and I play pretty rough but we enjoy it. I mean this looks pretty scary but we really love each other. When we aren't biting each other we usually eat sticks together and we are starting to chase after a Frisbee or stick. Unless we get distracted by a good looking stick that needs to be chewed.

 

 

 

We love treats as well. So if you ever want to play with us, please bring treats. We don't sit for long so give it to us fast! 

Yesterday Bell and I had a great play date. We played for about an hour outside. It has been raining and there is a ditch that was a little wet. Well, we found the muddiest spot and played there for about 15mins while our moms talked and had no idea. Finally we came out and they weren't too happy. Don't worry we found a big puddle in the ditch and cleaned off...sorta. 

The Wash

The day my mom and dad came to pick me up the breeder told them he had just given all of us a bath. He told them that I didn't like it and I was squirming and trying to jump out the whole time. So why they thought a free dog wash would be a good idea is BEYOND ME.

As you can see from the above picture I was not happy about this. I am just getting used to the water and I especially don't like doing things without being slowly introduced to them. They just plopped me into this pool and this lady just started spraying me with COLD water. I mean at least they could have done is warm it up a bit! Then she poured a big thing of shampoo on me and just started lathering up! I was not amused. 

Yeah she looks nice but I am not enjoying this.

There was some good out of it. I got my picture taken and got a treat for it. There were lots of other dogs that wanted to play so that was fun. Oh and there was this dog house that we bought some raffle tickets for. I mean we live in a pretty small apartment so I don't know where that thing is going but whatever. I don't get much say around here, obviously.

~ Brooks

Who is the newest Schwamberger?

Many people might think my adopted mom (Tanya) is the newest Schwamberger since her and my adopted dad (Ben) got married here in America. Well thats just not true, because they adopted me about 2 weeks after they got married. Not only am I the newest Schwamberger but I am also the cutest and coolest. And probably soon to be most athletic. I think I need to whip these to slackers into shape! 

Let me tell you a little about myself. They named me Brooks (after the running shoe, which I like), I am an 11 week old Vizsla, I was the biggest female out of my litter, and I am awesome. 

So we moved down here to Alabama. The ride down here was okay, I rode in the front seat of the U Haul with mom and dad, but I wish mom would have gone in the back so I could just snuggle up with dad the whole time. When we got down here I think we were all pleasantly surprised. First thing we did after getting our keys was go for a walk on the "river walk". That was awesome but a little short for my liking. But there are lots of sticks there so I like it. That night though we went to, what we call, "the oyster trail" because it leads to this oyster house. This is one of my favorite walks. 

A few days later we went across the river to the actual river walk. Much longer and nicer over on that side. There is a farmers market as well which mom really likes going to. We also went over to the University where dad is going. Pretty nice over there, there are lots of squirrels and lots of girls, who think I am the cutest thing in the world, which I am. 

It's been a pretty good deal for me lately because mom isn't working yet. So we kinda hang out all day together. I do a lot of lounging she does...well I don't really know because I am sleeping. But we do go down to the "forest" a lot and hang out down by the river. Now we call it the "forest" because it's called the river walk but it's not really. And one day while we were walking we met this older lady and she had a little dog that didn't want to play with me. Her dog's name was "peaches" and she said that they called it the "forest" and we thought that was pretty funny so thats what we call it. But can we talk about the dogs name...peaches? You know your in the south when the dogs are name peaches and bella. 

Well it's time for a nap, I will fill you all in on more later on. 

My First Half Marathon

Jess and I waiting to start! 

Well yesterday was the day, the day I completed my first half marathon. Never did I think I would run 13.1 miles without stopping. But I did it, and I did it in 2:06! Here is how it went down! 

 We got up and had some breakfast and then headed out to the start. Now it has been chilly in the mornings recently so we were ready with our light jackets. But when we walked out of the hotel we realized we didn't need them, which meant it was going to be a warm day! We got to the starting line and waited to start. We realized very quickly that it was going to be a very windy run. Which I wasn't a big fan on. The one positive, the wind would be to our back the last km to the finish line! We started and Jess and I ran together for the first 10km then we hit some head wind and I told her to go ahead and I did the best I could to keep pace. The picture to the right is at the 11km marker about half way. People are looking to the right and clapping because the professional runners were on the other side of the road with just 3km to go. We all started together, they were running fast! 

I felt pretty good the whole time, at about 18km I was getting tired and again we were running into the wind. But I saw the finish line and I kept pushing! This picture is jut before the finish line!

 

Jess finished just under 2 hours! She did a great job, and I was lucky to have a great friend to train for this half marathon, I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it without her! In the picture below we were ready to stretch and relax after a good hard run!

Will I do another half marathon? Ben asked me that right after, when my hips were killing me and my legs were tired and I said NO! But today I feel good and would love if I could break 2 hours. So maybe there is another half marathon in my future.

Thanks to my wonderful husband for supporting me and taking pictures!

HSBC Golf Tournament in Abu Dhabi

A couple weeks ago Ben and I attended the HSBC Golf Tournament here in Abu Dhabi. I wasn't really expecting too much. I figured we would see the players but never really go up close. I told Ben on Friday when we were heading out there, you know I don't think I will come tomorrow I have stuff to do. Well we had so much fun on Friday we did go back Saturday, especially since we wore red we got in for FREE! 

We got super close to the players. At one point Tiger and Mcilroy walked by me, I was so close I could have touched them! And then probably be escorted off the golf course so I kept my hands to myself. On another hole Mcilroy squatted down right in front of me while he was lining up his shot. I wanted to tell him to get out of my way so I could watch Tiger putt but thought that would be rude. 

On Friday we followed Tiger, Mcilroy, Donald and watched them on all 18 holes. There weren't too many people on Friday so like I said, we were close. But on Saturday there were a tone more people so we went to the holes where we knew we could get a good view and we could get ahead of the Tiger and Mcilroy crowd. On this par 3 hole we watched a couple groups. This guy name Rock almost got a hole in one and we noticed he wasn't wearing a hat, which was strange because although it's not super hot these days it is still very sunny. But he had Justin Bieber hair so we figured he didn't want to mess it up. We actually watched him a couple times and he ended the day tied for first with Tiger.

As you know we work on Sunday here (something I can't wait to get back when we move back to the states) so we couldn't go watch the final day. Although Ben and I both thought about it because we had so much fun the last two days. Rock, the guy with great hair, ended up winning! Which was pretty cool.

European Vacation

It is time for a post about our European Vacation! We spent our holiday in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest with our friends Paul and Lisa. Instead of doing a day by day recap of what we did I thought I would share the highlights!

Walking: We did a lot of walking on our trip. It's such a great way to see lots of different things in the city and also find tucked away places. We walked everywhere! Whenever we got cold we just popped into the next restaurant, cafe, or bar. In Prague all of the sidewalks and most of the roads were cobblestone. It really made you feel like you were in an older place. In Vienna and Budapest they were paved sidewalks. We were amazed at how clean all of the cities were while we walked around. In the picture to the right you can see Ben in the blue jacket. I was always in the back, short legs = slow walker.
 






Christmas markets: There were Christmas markets in every city we went to. They were really fun to walk around because you could get a feel of the kind of food we ate, different crafts, and things that represented the city. There were usually a couple different markets in each city. We really enjoyed exploring them and looking at all the different items. The picture to the left is a Christmas Market in Vienna. 

Dogs: From the moment we landed in Prague when we loaded onto the bus there were dogs. The first dog we met was on the bus and he rested his head on Paul's knee. We were amazed to see so many dogs on public transport, walking in the streets, playing in the park, in restaurants, and just ever where. I think there might have been some law that dogs must be muzzled because most that we saw had a muzzle on them. None of the dogs looked scared though, they usually kept to themselves and didn't mind all of the people. We don't see many dogs in Abu Dhabi so it was really fun to see all the dogs and how they acted. In Budapest we even where in a park where some dogs were playing. There was a greyhound and to watch him take off in a sprint was pretty amazing, they are fast dogs!  

Sausage:  I think all of you may know this, but we don't get a lot of pork in Abu Dhabi and when we do its mediocre at best. Now I am not a huge pork fan, I don't LOVE bacon, but I do really enjoy sausage. And one thing we learned in Central Europe is that they do sausage right. We probably had some sort of sausage everyday in our 2 week trip. We had them at the markets, in restaurants, from street vendors. I think our favorite sausage was from Vienna. Now they really did sausage right. They would take a large long roll, cut off the end, stick it on a spike to toast, then squirt mustard and ketcup in it. They then would stick the sausage in the roll. OHHH it was awesome! The picture above was taken on Christmas day, with our awesome sausage dog from Vienna! 

Christmas: We were in Vienna for Christmas. That day Ben and I rented bikes and rode around the city. Vienna had such wonderful bike lanes everywhere. Even in the winter time many people were still riding their bikes. So we rode around for about two hours. We ended up getting our yummy sausage dogs for lunch. That night Paul, Lisa, Ben, and I were trying to find a place to eat. Since it is a Christian country many things were closed. We walked around for a while and found a bar that was open. We walked in and everyone looked at us like we had 4 heads. We asked if they had food, they didn't, but we figured we would stay for a drink anyway. We stayed and the 12 year old behind the bar brought us this fried pastry, very good. He was learning English in school and his friends/family were trying so hard for him to speak to us, but I am sure he didn't know too many English words. It was a funny time and we left after a drink to find some real food. We found a place and walked in and asked if they were serving food they said yes but it was Kosher. We had walked into maybe one of two Jewish restaurants in all of Vienna. We ordered some food, it was very good, and headed back to our hotel. 
 
Cathedrals: In all of the cities they had the most amazing cathedrals. You could tell how much work it took to complete each one. Inside the stain glass was just amazing. You really got a sense of how old Europe is by the Cathedrals. They were truly amazing.

Weather: We found out that this part of Europe usually has snow during Christmas. Let me tell you that it snowed for about 2 seconds one of the last days in Prague, then it turned into snow. Although I was a little upset it didn't snow it was probably for the best since it would have been much colder walking around in the snow. It did rain a little a couple days but overall the weather was nice. I mean we were cold at times but we expected that. When we back to Abu Dhabi we both said although it was fun to be cold for a while the 70 degree weather isn't so bad either!  

New Years:  We were back in Prague for New Years since we were leaving on New Years day. All of the hotels and hostels (dorm rooms, you rent a bed) were expensive. So our friend Paul found a site that had rooms to rent. Well he found this guy that was reasonable and we decided it would be a good idea. The room we rented out was in an apartment this guy lived in with his girlfriend and daughter. I am pretty sure the room we stayed in was his daughters room but we didn't mind. So it was all four of us in this room, rather amusing. We didn't want to go downtown that night because we knew we had to get up early so we stayed in. Well the owner of the apartment also stayed in and invited friends over. It was a fun night meeting new people and having good conversation. This dog belong to the apartment but he was cute! Look at those ears! I think he wanted some sausage! 

We had such a great time, although we missed our families very much. But we know we will be back in the states soon and we will be able to see you more often! We hope you all had a great holiday and hope 2012 has started off with a bang! Love and miss you all! 

Ben and Tanya