happy birthday sabin!

our pooka turns 9 today. last year, i did a photo retrospective of her year of being 7, but with the iMac in the shop, i don't have my full photo library at my disposal at the moment.  no sense duplicating oneself anyway. i can see that she traveled a bit less at 8 than she did at 7, but that's got to do with my job change, the general global slow-down and our growing concerns about the environment. still, she did get to go to the west coast of denmark a couple of times and she added ireland to her list of places she's been and we did make it to singapore, so it's not as if she didn't get on a plane at all.

running along the beach at the southernmost point of the asian continent.

(probably artificial, it was, after all, singapore)

you could say it was the year of the converse for sabin. she got red hightops, silver lowtops and some with a print. the silver ones are by far the coolest - you can't go wrong with silver leather.

she started riding lessons soon after she turned 8 and they have been a highlight of her year for sure. in fact, they're the catalyst for us changing our entire lifestyle - putting the house up for sale, making plans to move to a farm - all of which will undoubtedly happen while she's 9.



it's so strange to think of how little you know when the year starts out. we may think that things don't really change or feel impatience with the pace at which they change sometimes, but they change a great deal all the time. over the past year, sabin's grown like a bad weed, she's become more confident and self-assured. she's definitely a 'tween now, caring a bit more about clothes and what's on television. but in many ways, she's still our little girl and we have to remember to enjoy that while we can, as those teenage years are surely looming on the horizon.

i can't really predict at this moment what her 9th year will hold, but i'm looking forward to watching it unfold.

happy birthday, pooka.