A GrrrrEAT Birthday!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post about my barkday! I was busy all weekend having some barkday fun, and then on Monday we went to the beach again, and on Tuesday the humans left me home alone all day! They just mentioned something about rides and shows and the fair, and then they were gone for the entire day! I didn't think it was very nice of them to leave me home alone so soon after my barkday, but of course I'm a dog and dogs are known to be forgiving so I have to live up to the dog name, right? So I forgave them. I got a cookie when they got back.

Anyway, about my barkday, I had a BLAST! My human Lizzy baked a peanut butter carrot cake, which I thought was delicious and she thought was weird.

She put my piece of cake on a plate on the floor (I can't believe I wasn't allowed to eat at the table, even on my own barkday!). I think I was supposed to eat the cake on the plate, but I think it tastes much better if I just dump it on the floor and spread it in the bits of food that have already fallen to the ground from the table. Mmmm!

After I finished my cake, I stood up with my front paws on the table, waiting 'till I could open my present.

Finally, I could see what kind of new stuff my humans got me! Oooh, a rope toy! This isn't just any old rope toy, this is a rope toy with a tennis ball on the end!

Oh! Oh! This is exciting! A new squeaky newspaper! This is my third squeaky newspaper, the other two didn't even last for 5 minutes.

Okay, what else is there?!

Nice! Two more rope toys with some hard things at the end... I'm not quite sure what these are, but they make wonderful tug toys!

In all my excitement, I couldn't help jumping up onto the table to play! Unfortunately the humans made me go back onto the chair. This is a butt-shot as I was getting back down.

Oh, look! I got cookies! These are delicious! I really worked up an appetite getting all those presents out of the bag. Altogether I got about 7 new toys, and 3 bags of treats!

Could I have some more cookies, please?

Okay, now, I still haven't been able to share all my adventures and pictures of the vacation yet! We've been back for almost two weeks, and I think I haven't even gotten half way through telling you about the holiday. I still have to show you all the sticks I saved from the water, both from the ocean and the swimming holes in the river, and I still have to show you all the big rock I climbed on, and there's also the scariest suspension bridge ever that I had to brave, and the giant ocean waves that I thought would drown me as I tried to rescue my poor orange ball, and the terrifying canoe ride that my big human brother made me do, and the lovely sunsets... So, what should I tell you all about next? How about the sticks?

I found this stick, and barked at one of my humans to throw it. Okay, actually, is was the human who found the stick, but I barked at her anyway to throw it. Only problem was, she threw it in the water instead of across the sand, so of course I had to dive in and rescue the stick before it drowned! It was tough work, I tell ya, that was a big stick!

I'm a strong dog, even at 7 years, and I managed to get the stick safely ashore.

However, my humans thought I wanted them to throw the stick in again since I brought it back, so they threw it back into the water! Of course, I had to save the stick again.

Later on, we all went up a river to these big swimming holes. There were two of them, but we just stayed in one because the second swimming hole was a 40 foot plunge down the waterfall.

I went to check out the water fall, but I came back pretty quickly before I could slip down it!

It was a long drop down...

I went to the other end of the cliff , but I still had to be careful not to fall off!

After a little while at the swimming holes, I found another stick in need of help! So I jumped in to save it.

It was tough climbing out with a big stick, so someone broke it in half and then threw the halves into the water for me. I went back in to save the two sticks, and climbed out with each half.

Time to shake dry!

The sunlight felt good after swimming in the cold water with those sticks! I was happy to dry off. I slept well that night...