Our big adventure is over.  We are back in Canada.

Yesterday was yet another long day (I know, I know, I say every day was long!).  We had another early morning start—luckily the restaurant staff are used to us showing up before they open and are right ready with our little pots of coffee at 7am when they open   I checked out and gave my credit card a good work out paying for the hotel (I guess I should have known that my shower jets and my view wouldn't come cheap!).  We hopped on the bus for a 3-4hour trip to Amsterdam.  It was a holiday in Belgium so the roads were deserted.  We had a little more of a work out checking in at the airport.  One line up to check baggage, one line up to pay for the dogs, one line up to check the dogs papers...  This time around all our dogs cost 150 Euro to fly.  On the way there, everyone's dogs cost $150 to fly except for poor Bogey who was charged $450!  Guess we should be happy that Bogey didn't cost 450 Euro for a trip home!  We had a very loooong walk to our gate but still managed to get there in time to watch the dogs get loaded on the plane. 

We arrived in Toronto early but our dogs ended up getting sent to the cargo building and we had to wait about an hour for them to be returned to us.  All were very happy to see us, but seemed unaffected by the flight.

John Blenkey kindly met Tracy & I at the airport and drove us back to Say Yes where we'd left the cars and I headed back across Toronto to spend the night at Shona's house in Bowmanville.  Shona had a roast beef dinner waiting for me when I arrived.  I'm very impressed! 

A few photos that got missed....


Some of our Canadian dogs relaxing in the shade before the closing ceremonies
L-R Encore, Target, Decaff, Fly, Slyce, Minnie, Jitterbug & Peter


Captain Canada

And a little more drinking...?  Those Canadians must like their beer
Did I mention that Tracy told me as I headed into the ring each time that "If you do well, I'll buy you a beer!"  What more incentive does one need???
 
The Welcome Banquet-First Round of drinks, 8pm


A few more beers and yet another "Here's to Canadian Agility" cheers in Brugges


Kayl sampling her father's beer (I swear it wasn't hers!!). 


Fly just after he had gotten off the plane in Amsterdam last week


Jitter, Slyce & Ping Pong in the Amsterdam tulips


Our flag barer, Marie-Pierre, who came home with two medals!

The Brits managed to find a crazy rock version of their national anthem and had us all rocking.  By the end of the awards however, most countries were just getting shortened versions of their anthem.  Unfortunately the anthem DJ didn't quite know what the UK anthem sounded like and kept just playing the rocking pre-lude, which sounded nothing like their anthem.  On Sunday, when Encore took the podium for her first place snooker run, I was surprised to hear that someone had changed our anthem for one with words.  Turned out it was Kayl who was singing it right in front of me!!!  She did a fantastic job!!


Kayl 'serenading' Susan & Encore with Oh Canada (note the flag on the bum—a last minute sewing job after one of the dogs chewed through Kayl's only pair of shorts... LOL)


Fly getting a massage from 'mom'.

Check out Jane's shirt above.  She and Mike were sporting 'Worlds Best Agilty Mom/Dad' shirts although Mike's disappeared very shortly after he put it on as he traded it with someone.  There was a huge t-shirt trading market all weekend and our Canadian tees were very sought after.  I came home with a US shirt in exchange for mine although it is embroidered with 'Mary-Ellen Barry' on it.  Actually on Sunday night, I had dinner with two 'Stewart Mah's' and sat next to a 'Stacy Peardot-Goudy'.  Okay, so they weren't the real thing, but Penny from Australia didn't seem to care that we called her Stacy   Anyone who asked for our jackets were met with a polite "NO WAY!" (not that we got to wear them much—it was so hot!!).  We also sold a lot of our fundraising tees as the host club didn't even have souvenir shirts for sale.


I know I've missed tons of stories and some of my updates haven't been the best, but I so appreciate all of you cheering me on from home on the blog and through personal notes.  Thanks for being so encouraging.  The other folks that I really, really need to thank are my support staff at home.  Dave, Mom, Dad, Dick, Penny & Pam—Thank you so much for making sure that Kyra, Piper & Rio weren't neglected.  I'm sure it was not easy and I really appreciate how much you helped out.  It was so nice to be able to relax and know that Kyra was in good hands! 

I also really need to thank Jane & Mike for lending me their boy.  I know it wasn't easy for them to sit on the side lines and watch, but I really appreciated the endless supply of high-fives after each run (actually anytime I made it to the stands to watch, the high-fives were flowing freely from all the Canadian supporters.  What an awesome group of people!!).

I just found that most of the results have been posted by Guy Blancke on his www.smoothmovesagility.com page.  I finally got to figure out how I fared.

In the individual all round:
Standard:  18th (Fly had a momentary lapse of memory on how to weave costing me 10 faults and a lot of time)
Jumpers:  4th (living up to his mom's luck of being just off the podium)
Gambers:  3rd
Snooker:  6th (despite picking the two-pointer over the six-pointer obstacle)
For an overall finish of 7th in the World!

In the individual biathalon:
Jumpers:  12th (we had two bars-whoops!)
Standard:  5th
For an overall finish of 5th (I think) in the World!

The team results haven't been posted yet.

Now I'm off to do a bit of laundry and hit the hay early.  It's back to 'real life' for a bit now...