Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to you all! Hope to be blogging more in the New Year.

Love, nwtnatalie

Happy Chihuahuas

Clearly they enjoyed summer vacation as much as I did.

Silly dog

Oh Malcolm!

Catching Up

Hello Readers,

For the last two weeks I have been without internet, with the exception of my cell phone. The blog is now updated, all of your comments have been posted and hopefully replied to. I want to thank everybody who stops by and takes time to read this, it surprises me every day.

Now, getting back to business, here are some photos of my dogs in their most favourite place on Planet Earth, the Dog Beach and Lakeshore Drive in Penticton. Those are some happy puppies.


Can you spot the chihuahuas? They look so tiny compared to the scenery!


Sun, sand and a curb to walk on. That's all Olivia asks for in life.

Don't even think about calling me Paris

One of the major downfalls of being a chihuahua lover in the year of 2009 is the stigma associated with the mighty chihuahua. Yes, pop culture has created a crazy image that if you love chihuahuas, you must love them because P. Hilton loves them as well. This drives me BATTY since, quite frankly, I loved the wee chihuahua eons before Ms. Hilton started prancing around with Tink in her purse.

Ugh.

So, to further clarify the situation I have composed a little gem for your reading enjoyment! (Ha.) Well, I know my Mom will like it at least. Enjoy!

These are the Chihuahuas of our Lives Part 1

Once upon a time, in the far away land of Nova Scotia lived a little girl by the name of Natalie. She lived happily with her Mom, Dad and sister named Sister. When she was very little her family had a Boston Terrier dog by the name of Brig. At the age of five, little Natalie moved from New Minas to Yarmouth. Her parents told her that the family did not have the time to properly care for a dog, so before the family moved, they gave away little Briggy.

A few years later the family acquired another dog, this time a cocker spaniel who they named Sam. After about a year, the family once again sadly realized they did not have enough time and they once again gave their dog away, this time to an elderly couple who the Dad knew.

That summer, little Natalie who was now nine years old was on vacation with her family in a mysterious land we shall call South Western New Brunswick. Natalie would often play happily outside with her cousin at Cousin’s house. Cousin had a new big, wild, white dog named Bingo. This dog spent most of his life chained up outside, did not receive proper exercise and therefore was wildly excitable and barked nonstop. Cousin told Natalie to be careful around this dog as it was totally untrained and not safe to be around children.

This one particular, sunny and warm day, Bingo was lying down and looking particularly pathetic in its dirt patch that he called home. He gazed over to young Natalie and enticed him with his eyes to come and pat him, “Come here Natalie... come pat me, I am your friend. I will not hurt you.” Natalie, trusting the sad and lonely gaze from Bingo decided to follow her instincts and slowly started walking towards Bingo with her hand held out tentatively for him to smell.

At this precise moment Bingo became so overwhelmed by his pent up energy and joy that a human was paying attention to him, that he sprang up into the air as fast as a rocket ship blasting off from planet Earth. He leaped maniacally with excitement toward the young Natalie and landed with his big, dirty paws on each one of the little girl’s shoulders and pulled her towards him. She screamed in confusion and terror as she was pulled sharply toward the dog. Suddenly, Bingo’s big brown slimy teeth struck the young Natalie’s pearly whites and wiped his fat, slobbery pink tongue over her mouth so violently that the little girl fell to the ground. Natalie crawled away from the chained dog, totally in shock.

Young Natalie lay dazed on the ground as her teeth ached in pain. She and Cousin then ran across the field to their grandparent’s house to tell her Mom and Dad what had happened. Natalie arrived breathless with tears streaking down her dirty face and landing upon her now filthy and stained pink t-shirt. After hearing this tale, the Mom gently held young Natalie, consoling her upset little daughter. Natalie’s uncle who we will call Uncle, added his two cents, cackled maniacally and said, “You know where that tongue just was? Lickin’ it’s dang ass! AHAHAHAA! HAHAHAA!” The mental image overwhelmed the young girl as fresh tears sprang from her eyes and vomit rose in her mouth.

From that day forward, Natalie despised dogs with an irrational fear. She could still feel those big brown, slimy teeth on hers and the feces coated (or so she believed) tongue wiping across her mouth.

To Be Continued...

Fun with watermelon!

Malcolm and Liv absolultely love raw fruits and veggies. I give them a little bit here and there as I really prefer they stick to their dry kibble. However, as you can see things tend to get a little out of hand when the watermelon comes out.

Here we have Olivia glaring with contempt and jealousy as Malcolm gnaws his was through a yummy slice of watermelon.

Olivia remains utterly unimpressed as Malcolm lovingly devours his slice.


As always is the case with watermelon, things tend to get a little crazy.

Yes, the doglets do love their watermelon!

If you lived here, you would be home now

Anyone who has ever been to the Halifax Shopping Centre is currently visualizing the little wooden sign on the front lawn of that old apartment building right across the road from HSC. Am I right? That little sign really summarizes my feelings on the North these days.

Recently I have felt a sense of "hominess" around the YK area.

Before we made the big move, it seemed like such a humongous deal that I was moving... North of 60. It was this wild, crazy, wonky adventure to be moving to a land shrouded in mystery and magic. Now that I live here and am in the whole Northern groove of things, it really doesn't seem like anything extra special. It's just home, it's where I live.

I will tell you all this, in the South, the North is highly misunderstood or not understood at all on any level. I have spent a lot of time mulling over what the heck is so different about the South from the North? What is it that happens when you cross that magical line that separates South from North? I believe one factor is the maintenance of tradition and culture.

Of course there are many modern influences in the North, however in how many towns in Southern Canada will you find someone walking down the road in winter, dressed head to toe in animal furs and skins? Or in a beautiful traditional parka or amutiq? There is really nowhere else that I can think of in Canada where citizens routinely wear "traditional" garments from times past.

In the Maritimes we have the iconic yellow Sou'wester hat, I am pretty certain that even fishermen do not wear those regularly.

I know that living here has broadened my outlook on society a great deal. When I left my Nova Scotia nest, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Of course, I felt that I was a worldly and educated young woman, heck I had been to Europe. Leaving all that I knew to "go west" was incredibly painful, uprooting myself from my family, friends and life in general. Looking back at all the places I have visited and things that I have learned in the past three years I am so happy to have done it, all in my own country. (Well, except for all those outlet shopping trips to WA of course! Wink, wink!)

My name is Natalie, I live in YK and I am home.
Life is good.

Espionage Part Deux

The evidence is mounting in support of the fact that Malcolm and Olivia may just in fact be Secret Agent Arctic Chihuahuas. To the average Joe, this may seem ridiculous, a figment of one's imagination. However, how can one argue with photographic evidence?

Upon entering the sleeping quarters, nothing may seem amiss to the untrained eye. The Secret Agent Arctic Chihuahua appears to be highly trained in the art of camouflage and deep cover. One must always "blend in" with one's surroundings.


Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the two Secret Agents have been discovered while practicing and perfecting their finely tuned craft.

Indeed, here we see them employing their small size to seemingly "disappear" into the depths of the pillows. Perception is everything and the Arctic Chihuahua must be a master of deception to live amongst the humans.


In an unprecedented move, Secret Agent Malcolm boldly breaks all cover and emerges from his hiding lair. Secret Agent Olivia looks on in disgust and sheer horror.


Call me crazy dear Readers, but how do you argue with proof? At least now I know what I am dealing with and will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

Until next time, godspeed.

Puddles and poopsicles

Warning: The following deals with the topic of poopsicles, which probably is an offensive topic to most. If you fall under that category, you may want to not read the following entry. Thanks!

-nwtnatalie

I am having a major love/hate relationship with Springtime up here in the Arctic. I LOVE it for the obvious reason: it is plus 5C, the sun is shining and my nostrils no longer freeze together when I frolic amongst nature. Life is good, great in fact. This actually makes me so happy I want to run outside and kiss the ground while exclaiming to the heavens above, "THANK YOU! Thank you Baby J, thank you Caucasian bearded J, I feared this day would never come, thank you, thank you, thank you oh wonderful Mother Nature lady!" Never in my life have I felt so over abundantly happy for Spring to arrive.

However, two things prevent me from running around and kissing the ground like a freshly escaped prisoner from jail and they would be: puddles and poopsicles. The street that I live on now is a half pavement/ half rocky crater filled, snowy, slushy, poopy, gravely, puddley mess. I have never seen the likes y'all.

Since the weather has improved so dramatically I now can start walking my children aka dogs again. This is a very exciting thing in my household, the kids LOVE car rides and walks. Where we lived in Southern BC, it was warm all the time, and there were only a few weeks of the year that we couldn't walk the dogs. Now that we live in the Arctic, that obviously has changed.

Yesterday we went for the first walk. I was so very happy to be outside and not freezing off various important bodily parts, it was a great moment. The kids were trotting along joyously when all of a sudden upon leaving the driveway they saw the array of puddles, craters, slush, snow and ice mess ahead of them on our street. I had to carry Olivia through the battlefield of our street, as she strongly dislikes dirtying herself (she's a diva and I love it) and she had put on the brakes. After jumping a huge lake like puddle at the end of the street, we made it to the sidewalk. Initially I felt relief as the next few sidewalk squares in front of us were dry. Then I realized for every 3 squares dry sidewalk there were 5 squares of drowned, lake like sidewalk to maneuver. That was fine, I am Maritimer, clearly tough as nuts, however I imagine the townsfolk got a kick out of seeing Olivia and myself walk a few feet, see me pick her up, jump the puddle, put her down and so on.

Very quickly amidst puddle jumping, I began to notice the poopsicle situation of my neighborhood. And I wanted to BARF ALL OVER THE SIDEWALK. A poopsicle, for those who have been wondering if I simply misspelled "popsicle", is a frozen or once frozen piece of canine excrement that is found in highly unsavory public places. It is especially sickening in it's melted form it has a shiny, melty, runny look that in some cases may trigger mouth barfing. In my case they seem to be found every two paces along my neighborhood walking route. Some are squashed with a foot imprint (Oh Grissom would be in heaven!) some are long and just THERE, some are broken up, they come in all shapes and sizes.

For the record, I have visited la belle ville de Paris en France and let me assure you, they have got nothing on YK for sheer amount of canine excrement on the sidewalks.

Pick up the poop fellow YKers, the poopsicle situation in town right now is absolutely filthy and sickening. Stoop and scoop. Have some respect! I am certain that most small birds emit more excrement then my doggies, however I still clean up after them. In YK it is also a bylaw, so there is even more incentive fer ya.

Puddles and poopsicles friends, puddles and poopsicles.
Spring has arrived in the glorious metropolis of YK. I love it.

Espionage

I'm starting to wonder if my dogs are taking secret spy courses in their spare time. Seriously, things are getting slightly ridiculous around here.

Here is the evidence:

Malcolm fine tuning the age old art of "playing dead".

Olivia perfecting her "it wasn't me" face.

Malcolm perfecting his "it wasn't me" face.

Here we have Malcolm employing "playing dead" and "where's Waldo" AT THE SAME TIME.

Olivia in the process of staking out her prey.

She slyly anticipates the easiest way to go in for the kill.

Here we see her employing the ol' "I'm so cute and would never do ANYTHING wrong, Daddy!" face.

With her prey in sight,

she springs in to capture the highly prized egg roll.

If this doesn't confirm my suspicions, I don't even know what would. Here we have the two co-conspirators practicing the ol' "Pretending to sleep under the blanket while secretly surveying my Mommy and Daddy" trick. It works every time.



I think I'm on to something folks, I'll be sleeping with one eye open from now on. Stay tuned for further updates.

She is the Queen of the Castle

I recently did a "bed makeover", just picked up some new bedding to freshen things up. My wonderful friend sent me the quilt set from Quilts, Etc in the Cherry Lane Shopping Centre in Kelowna. I had found the accent pillows at Winners when I was last in the South and was saving them until I found the perfect bedding to go with. The white pillow is from Ikea, white velor fabric stuffed with down fill and the blue and chocolate pillows are from Winners, they were a fantastic price with silk exterior and down fill. I was very excited to finally have everything (king sized pillows for the shams included) so I could put this emsemble together.

Later on in the day I came to found my bed looking frazzeled and Miss Olivia plunked down in the middle of it all.
You're welcolme Liv, I like it too.

This makes me laugh...

You all know I love my dogs. If you didn't... well I love my dogs.

Before I had them I thought that people who were obsessed with their dogs were kind of creepers. Hello, dogs are DOGS... not children. Weirdos.

Now I refer to my dogs as "the kids" or "my children". Yeah.

I also thought people who dressed dogs up in clothes were nuts, I mean, that is sick, they are dogs! They don't wear clothes for a reason. Then I saw how cold Liv would get, and well one thing lead to another and now each one has their own, personalized wardrobe. Snowsuits, NHL jerseys... name it, they have it.

They also have a stroller. See previous posts... I can't help it. It is like a drug.

I feel better now that I have all that off my chest. Just so y'all understand me. So here's some photos of my little boy Malcolm in one of his favourite hang out spots. These are NOT staged... it is just how my Mally Boy rolls.

Forget Where's Waldo, I have my own Where's Malcolm?

And a close up!

In black and white, such a silly boy.

Snuggling with his big, pink snake. (Ah, sorry, that sounds kinda sick.)

And just so Livvie doesn't feel left out, here she is before Malcolm took over the Princess Bed!

Sigh, I love my dogs..

The Arctic Chihuahua

Miss Olivia practicing "Blue Steel":



As Goldilocks:

Just goofin' around:



Malcolm in his cave:


Visiting Nanny and Grampy's and enjoying the beautiful sun: