Liesl's Vacation

It is pretty common knowledge that Schnauzers are really smart. In fact, they are referred to as "The Dog With The Human Brain" because they tend to use a lot of the same logic and reasoning skills that humans do. They are also master communicators and can find ways to tell their people what they want and need.

While I know that Liesl had a really great time at the beach yesterday, she must have remembered that she did, too. This morning I got up and was just sitting down to have a cup of coffee when she kept going to the front door scratching the door and bouncing off it like while she was really excited. In general, Liesl does not go to the front door. She rings her bell at the back door when she needs to go out. This morning, she was smiling and looked super excited like she did when she was at the beach.

I quickly figured out she wanted to go to the beach again. I threw on my sweats and put an excited dog into the car and headed over to the dog beach in Carmel. This is what Liesl looked like on the ride. She stood the whole way because she was so excited:

It was a gorgeous day at the beach as you can see, (Pebble Beach is in the background): She ran the whole length of the beach and chased the labradors into the water. This is what she looked like the rest of the afternoon:
Tonight was my birthday celebration with the family at PF Chang's, one of my favorite restaurants. I got to see my daughter, son-in-law, and son. We had a lot of fun. It was so good to have us all together and it made me feel so happy. Here are the beautiful presents they gave me:

The lovely little clutch with the beautiful buttons is a cover for my Kindle. My daughter knit it for me along with the goreous shawl in purple and green with the fancy lacey stitches that is under the portable drive. They are so beautiful. She is so talented!

The portable drive has a story. About a month ago, my six year old laptop died. I had been using it, walked away from it for fifteen minutes and when I came I had the dreaded black screen. I know it is totally stupid, but I had not had any trouble with it, so I had not backed it up. My biggest fear was that I lost Liesl's puppy photos from when she was a tiny girl and my genealogical info. So they gave me this portable drive, which only has to be plugged in to back up my computer. The best part of it though is that on the drive, were the contents of my old hard drive, which my wonderful son-in-law was able to rescue from my dead computer. The first thing I checked was for Liesie's puppy photos. Thank goodness. I have totally learned my lesson.