This may take a bit of time so I'll split my account over a few entries: On Friday 28th April Piper and I flew into Hamilton, ON to attend our team practice before leaving for Holland on the Sunday afternoon. I have to say that I was very impressed with the Facility at Say Yes. First of all the grass was green!! Remember that I am from Alberta where spring had yet to really arrive so we had not really practiced on grass yet... My turf runners are still full of arena dirt... We spent that evening putting together the team kit bags with the uniforms and other misc stuff that we had bought for the team. Saturday was the team practice which went really well - I can't say that any of us peaked too early (LOL!) but it felt good to run on grass and work through the courses that we hoped would be similar to those that we would be running at the actual event. We even ran the courses in the same order that we would see them at the championships. At the end of the day we gave out the uniforms which were well received - it seemed all so much more real all of a sudden. Sunday morning was the last few runs of our practice and we made time for some team photos. Our alternates Lane and Brandi were also there - it was so good to see them again. Unfortunately we were also missing a couple of our team members though - one of our toy dogs is sick and then a week before we were to leave the handler of our other toy dog came down sick himself so he was unable to make the trip. They would be sorely missed - especially as this would mean that we would have no dogs competing in the toy division this year. Hopefully both individuals will be feeling better soon... At the end of the practice we had time to grab a quick bite to eat and then it was time to head off to the airport to catch our flights... Stay tuned.. Sue & Piper