Her Life in Pictures: Seven

I was going gangbusters making beads and most of my pics from this year are of beads and not my girlie.

Early in this year, Mabel Lou took some of her best photos ever that summer at the creek:

And while I kinda thought I had an amazing dog, I was starting to be in awe of her communication skills. It was this summer she tore her toenail off while I had pneumonia. And kept tearing it every day at the creek. As my fever broke, Hank and Sue's mom called to check on me and I told her I was fine but if she could come check on Mabel's nail, I would be so grateful. I hung up the phone and told Mabel, "Auntie's coming over to look at your foot."

We humans were so surprised when Mabel Lou ran to the door to great her Auntie...nothing new.  After a brief hello pet, she lifted her paw in the air for Auntie to inspect  and became very vocal! Several grousing noises followed by a long pitiful whine! Poor baby! Impressive baby!

Mabel had always enjoyed sitting outside with me watching fireworks every fourth of July...but from this injury on, she would always stay in the house and never came out to watch them with me again! Here she is pouting at the boom booms:

That fall, we started having our long running "Baby Fight" where I would take one of her stuffies and use it to make her jealous.I did this when I did not feel I got the kisses or affection I deserved! But I took things way too far when I threatened to take Baby to the creek and even went so far as to put her on Mabel's seat in the car! Mabel got in the car and tore Baby to shreds. My favorite part of this was that while Baby was all over the yard, her "heart" a/k/a the squeaker was left on the fire place hearth. I'm certain Mabel was hoping to burn it up! But we just transferred the game to another Baby Lou and I'm ashamed to admit how many have died in the course of me making Mabel jealous! Is it any wonder this is a one dog household??


We started hiking the Alta Dena Trails. Here Mabel and her pal Twinkie are giving me a heart attack by walking on the edge of the road with a steep drop off: 

This quickly became our favorite swimmie hole there:

 

We had a big fire that drove us batty with all the ash and soot. And this if the first time one of my favorite self portraits appeared in my photo stash.

I liked this so much I took another version and it remains my favorite of the two of us. I'm getting a kiss from Miss Mabel here:

And Mabel got her only trip to the ocean:

I had been aching to take her again before she died and just could never make it work.