Our European visit...

Hi everyone! It's been a while since we've written on Abbey's blog but with all the end of year and equally crazy beginning-of-the-new-year madness behind us, we've finally settled into a  nice routine and I hope to visit all your blogs in the next couple of day to catch up.

I have not traded little miss Abbey in for the cutie above but had to share this picture with you. We were fortunate enough to spend the first day of the year in Funchal, Madeira, the island where my husband was born. This picture was taken at our favourite restaurant on the island and whenever we visit, this is part of the ritual - saying hi to their three resident birds, Joanna, Junior and Vicente. I think if Abbey had to come face to face with one of these she'd run for the hills - they are about twice her size!

Here are a few of the pics I took at the restaurant on this day...

And the food was excellent - as always!

As for the rest of our trip - I was really happy to see that city dwellers in Europe seem to be really good about exercising their dogs. People were our walking their pets early in the mornings and late afternoon, evening walks seemed quite the norm as well. Here are a few we spotted on the streets of Malaga, Santa Cruz and Rome.

We discovered this delightful pair in a very nice pet shop in Spain and the owner allowed me to take a photograph. I was really impressed with how he kept them and we spent forever in his shop watching these two play as only young pups can - with absolute abandon! I hope that by now they are happily connected with their new owners.

Finally - I know I have the cutest Yorkies in the world, but I have to admit, this little Portuguese princess that I spotted at Monte in Funchal was pretty hard to resist!