Officially 16!

Yes, I am a few days late, but I thought it would be worth it to do an official birthday post. Emily celebrated her actual 16th birthday in Minnesota with a nice day of browsing in local stores, a sushi dinner, and a lovely chocolate cake. Sounds perfect to me.

This coming week, she has onboarding for her volunteer position with the hospital. Once that is complete, I assume that she can start picking up shifts. Other than that, she plans to read, work on her typing, maybe do some SAT prep, and do some shopping at the Mall of America (of course!). During the first half of July, she will spend two weeks at the French camp she attended last summer, which I think she is looking forward to. Summer seems to be slipping by very quickly this year, so hopefully she will make the most of it!

Surprise!

Yes, it has been a long time since my last post, but I think this one is worth the wait. For many years, Emily has dreamed of having a big bash for her 16th birthday. As the time got closer, though, she felt like it might be hard to find a date that would work for her friends, and she was afraid that having a party that felt like a bust would be worse than no party at all, so she decided that we shouldn't plan anything. 

Fortunately, her friends thought this was a terrible idea and asked me to host a surprise party for her. We have been hard at work on it for weeks, and yesterday was the big day. You'll have to see for yourself how Emily reacted. :)

The party had a masquerade ball theme with a black-and-silver motif, so part of her friends' plan required me to pick up a fancy dress for Emily. Once she was appropriately attired, she could take in a bit more of the surprise. 

As you can see, she was pretty overwhelmed. One of the benefits of having 15-year-olds plan parties is that they aren't constrained by practicality the way I would be, so they took Emily's favorite candy - KitKats - and painted a whole bunch of them silver with edible silver and then built a tower out of them. They also provided the inspiration photos for the cake we ordered. 

They knew Emily wanted mocktails, so they relied on ChatGPT for a recipe, which was actually really good - equal parts Sprite, lemonade, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice - and then added more edible silver to the mix. The rest of the menu included a cheese-and-cracker tray, fruit skewers, and pizza.

For entertainment, they watched Jennifer's Body (one of Emily's favorites), danced, and did some karaoke. Here are a few more photos from the evening.

It's hard to tell, but there were actually balloons and foil glitter all over the house, so it was very festive. Last but not least, there was the singing and blowing out the candles bit. They decided a single red candle would be the best option. Don't worry, I don't sing through the whole video. LOL.

Emily was still on cloud 9 this morning. She is so incredibly happy and appreciative of all the work that went into the party. I told her friends that I have no doubt she will remember it for the rest of her life! :) 

Spring Break

As you can probably tell by the lodge in the background, Emily went skiing for Spring Break. She, along with Abbie, Chad, and Sarah, went to Keystone, which is the only ski resort Emily has ever been to, so she was pretty familiar with it. The first part of the week was incredibly cold, and the second part was incredibly warm. They were able to get some skiing in, though, and Emily did great with it. She enjoys just coasting down the easy trails, as you can see in the video. 

Now that she is back to school, the challenge is to keep her momentum up until the end of the year. She just received an award from her AP Human Geography teacher for embodying integrity, so hopefully that recognition will help keep her going. Slowly, though, classes will start to wind down. She had her Spring choir concert last week. They have a choir competition tomorrow, which should be the last major requirement for the year. In Human Geography, their AP exam is on May 5th, and then that class will be largely done. The last day of school is May 21st, so just under two months to go.

Despite having had her driver's permit for months now, we have done almost no practicing. Emily says she prefers night driving so that "no one can see her." She is afraid of embarrassing herself, I guess. Pfft. We are slowly getting her summer plans in order. She will do two weeks at the French camp again this year. She is also working on setting up some hospital volunteering. She has been volunteering with the Red Cross for the past few months, so this would dovetail nicely with that.

On the social scene, she has been hanging out with her friend, Anishka, quite a bit. Anishka is really sweet, and they seem to get along well. They also have several classes together, so they have lots to talk about. She is also back to dating Preston. This is a guy that she dated last year. He is in her English class this year and seems to have matured a bit. When possible, they spend Friday evenings watching movies at our house or his. :)

New Year, New 'Do

Emily decided to start the year with a new, significantly shorter haircut. It turned out really well and looks very sophisticated on her. She is really happy with it. 

Other than being back to school, the main sources of excitement have been a trip to see Abbie, Elizabeth, and Greg for the marathon, being selected for an art competition, a winter storm that shut down school for four days, and obtaining her driver's permit. That's a lot!

It was a good, but cold, marathon weekend, and I think Emily enjoyed it. She is also excited to have been selected to participate in an art competition. She has been going to school early every morning this month to work on the piece she will submit. The competition is in mid-February, so I will have more to report soon. As for the winter storm, it couldn't have come at a better time in that Emily caught a cold and was able to spend the four days resting and recuperating so she didn't have to miss class. Most kids would love to miss school, but it would stress Emily out to no end. Finally, perhaps the biggest news is that she got her learner's permit two days ago, so now we need to start practicing! I told her we could go out tomorrow to start the process. Keep me in your thoughts, as training a new driver is never easy! :)