Happy Birthday Meadow!

It's Meadow's birthday today. She's 6. Katie was very excited for Meadow's birthday and gave her a "present." She put one of her books on the floor in front of Meadow and called it her birthday present and said Meadow liked it. We took Katie to pick out an actual present for Meadow yesterday. There's a cute little independent pet supply store near us that we've been favoring in the past year or so. I heard that they had fish in the basement so we made a trip out of buying Meadow food and went to look at the fish. It was pretty amazing - this little store had so many aquariums filled with beautiful sea life, a real koi pond and - perhaps best of all - a large tortoise walking around the store. Katie was scared of the tortoise. Yes, Katie who loves dogs of all sizes was scared of this creature she called a turtle. Well he is pretty big rescued tortoise named George. And she spent the rest of the night talking about how the turtle scared her.

But back to Meadow. The picture is from July 2002, Meadow was 5 months old and we took her to Ramapo Reservation to go swimming. She loved the water immediately.

So happy birthday to our first born, our blonde daughter. Although having a dog can often be a chore, we love the affection you give us and the joy you bring. Thank you for showing us the pleasure in a snowfall and the attraction of fallen sticks. May we have many more years of walks in the park together.