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! :)

Holiday Edition

As expected, Emily had a virtually nonexistent Thanksgiving thanks to her oral surgery. That said, the surgery went well, and she had virtually no pain. She did have to stay on a very soft diet, though, and that persisted for more than a few weeks because two weeks after the surgery, they "activated" the chain they had attached to the tooth during the surgery. She said the activation hurt worse than the surgery itself. She seems to be in good shape now, though. Just in time for us to go back next week and have them tighten it further. Hopefully, this will only last a few months. Once the tooth is exposed enough to place a bracket, we can stop all the chain business.

Charcoal project

As tends to be the case, the end of the semester, right before the winter break, was a busy time, filled with projects, like the art project above, tests, holiday parties, and a choir concert. Fortunately, that is all behind her now. One nice feature of her current school is that they require students to take midterm exams only if they have a grade below 85% in the course or have missed several days of class. In Emily's case, neither was an issue, so she didn't need to worry about studying for huge midterms.

Right after the semester ended, Emily flew to Minnesota to stay with Chad and Sarah for a couple of weeks. She has been keeping herself entertained with some shopping, ice skating, and using the break to get ahead on her AP Human Geography (aka AP HUG) notes. All in all, I think she had a good Christmas. She certainly received most of the presents on her list, so I would call that a success. She will be back in Texas later this week and then back to school next week. I suspect she is ready to get back to seeing her friends, but I am definitely not ready for the grind to resume!

Halloween Photos

Now that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I am finally getting a chance to post photos from the last holiday - Halloween! Everyone probably knows by now that this is Emily's favorite holiday. She had two costumes this year. School has strict rules about costumes - no weapons (including fake), no masks or face coverings, nothing gory, bloody, scary, or gruesome, nothing inflatable, and nothing without sufficient body coverage. With all these constraints, she had to have both her school-appropriate costume and her real costume. The school-appropriate costume was Regina George from Mean Girls.

For those who may not have seen the movie, here is the actual character.

Her real costume was a killer bride costume. It was easy to buy the dress, knife, and veil, and then she splattered the fake blood herself.

She and her friends did some trick-or-treating and then watched a movie as planned. I think they had a good time, but she was surprised by how few kids were out trick-or-treating. She assumed that they all went to the football game instead, but then I heard from people at the game that there weren't many kids there either, so who knows.

As for Thanksgiving, it won't be much of a holiday for Emily. She is scheduled to have oral surgery on Tuesday to expose a tooth that needs a little help getting with the program. I envision numerous smoothies and milkshakes in our future!

Annual School Photo

For perhaps the first time ever, Emily is happy with her annual school photo. I always like her photos, but I agree that this is a particularly good one.

Her year has been rolling along smoothly. She is doing well in her classes and is looking forward to Halloween. She is going to have some friends over to trick-or-treat with her, and then they are going to trade candy and watch a movie (or at least that's the plan). She says this will be the last year of trick-or-treating because she is getting old enough that people won't want to give her candy anymore. If that's the case, I'll make extra sure to get some photos of her in her costume!

Hoco 2025

 

Emily's school had its annual homecoming dance on the 13th. Being in a new school district, we weren't sure what to expect, but Emily thought it was important to go check it out. She decided to meet up with a friend of hers at the dance, which was scheduled from 7-11pm, but she was only there from about 7:30-9:30pm.

She was coming down with a cold, so she didn't have much energy for it. Plus, it turned out that the dance itself was "pretty lame." That's definitely a shame, but it also made my life easier because I didn't have to stay up past my bedtime to pick her up! 

Regardless of how the dance turned out, it did allow me to get some great photos of her! 

Back to School!

1st day outfit! 

Emily has been back in school for about a week and a half now. So far, it has been going really well. She has a very full schedule - Honors French, Honors Art, Fitness, Honors Biology, Honors Algebra, Choir, AP Human Geography, and Honors English. It is definitely a full schedule, but she really likes all of her teachers and the content is manageable because she has (1) more French background than everybody else, (2) a half year of Algebra under her belt from her prior school, and (3) already read the books they are planning to tackle in English this year. 

Friend-wise, she seems to be doing great. She has people she enjoys sitting with at lunch, and she feels like it has been pretty easy to make friends in class. The only hiccup so far has been the bus schedule. It went fine at first, but there have been substitute bus drivers lately, and they don't seem to be capable of following the schedule. So, most mornings, I drop her off on my way to work so that she isn't late, and then she takes the bus home in the afternoon, but she has taken to getting off earlier and walking farther to get home a little quicker. 

Camp Update

Emily absolutely LOVED her two weeks at French camp. It sounds like it was the perfect blend of structure and free time. Also, she said that everyone was really nice and the facilities were better than those at the camp she had attended in Texas for the past two years. She is absolutely committed to going back to French camp next year. 

On a walk around the lakes

She also decided that she would like to spend some additional time in Minnesota this summer, so rather than flying home and then flying back in August for the county fair, she is staying straight through. She says there is more to do there, which is probably true. Also, she hit it off with a boy named Atticus at camp (yes, his parents are English teachers and he is named after Atticus Finch). He lives pretty close to Chad, so the kids have been able to get together for movies, putt-putt golf, etc.

Sushi sisters

She has also been enjoying all the great food in Minneapolis. Sushi is one of her favorites, but she has also discovered the wonders of sweet-and-sour sauce in Chinese dishes, and appreciates the incredible pizza that is available. 

By the time Emily returns, a new school year will be just three days away! Where does the summer go? We ask every year, but never get a good answer. That said, Emily says she is happy to go back. Summer is great, but some structure is good, too.

Fifteen + One Week

I am overdue for a Happy Birthday post. Emily has already spent a week as a 15-year-old. It was a very laid-back birthday. She didn't want a party and even dragged her feet on having a special dessert. In the end, she opted for some macarons.

15-year-old Emily

Emily's one request was that we do some shopping. She loves going to the mall, so we did that and also made a stop at Target. I got her a few presents from her list, but nothing too exciting. She also has some presents waiting for her in Minnesota, so she has that to look forward to when she heads up there in a couple of weeks.

Although it looks like we went out for dinner for her birthday, we did not. The photo above was actually taken a few days after her birthday when we went for French food. It's proving to be a relatively quiet summer. Despite all the time on her hands, she hasn't started tackling her driver's ed course yet, so I suppose that is one less thing for me to worry about as she gets older. LOL.

School's Out for Summer!

Last day of school photo

As you can tell, Emily was pretty happy about the last day of school. She has really enjoyed the change and the friends she has made, but it is also nice to sleep in once in a while.

The last day concluded with an 8th-grade walkout, which the parents were invited to attend. Emily was horrified at the idea that I might show up, so of course, I made sure to be really obnoxious about it. LOL. There wasn't much to it; they just left the school and did a lap around the track. I was able to get video at both the start and end of her lap.

In the first video, you will see her appear in a green dress right at the end of the video and work very hard to ignore me. In the second video, she has braced herself and is ready to more actively put an end to my shenanigans. LOL.
 

Now that summer is here, we have been figuring out how her days will look. In her mind, she should do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. In my mind, there are opportunities for her to help around the house, learn to type, and finally tackle that driver's ed course. We'll probably find an equilibrium just in time for her to head up to Minnesota for three weeks (two of which will be at French camp).

Gearing up for summer

It is hard to believe that Emily's school year will end in just a few weeks. Her classes are already winding down. They have been doing standardized testing each week, but as soon as a given class is done with its required testing, the teachers lighten up and let the kids watch movies, etc. 

Now that the weather is nice, Emily has also been hanging out with friends at the park next to the school. She still has the same boyfriend, and sometimes he and his twin brother are part of the group that goes to the park, but her circle of friends is definitely starting to widen. The group meets at least two afternoons a week, and sometimes a friend or two will come home with her. Most of her friends seem to live within a mile of the school, but being practically across the street makes our house an easy hangout spot. Of course, that will change next year when she goes to the 9th-grade campus, but for now, it is great.

As for summer plans, there still isn't much on the agenda, but we did manage to sign Emily up for a 2-week French immersion camp at the end of June. Hopefully, that will get her back in shape for honors French this fall. It has only been a few months since she was in French classes at her old school, but she is already getting rusty. 

This weekend, we will trek down to Houston to bring Abbie some furniture for her apartment. Hopefully, Abbie and Emily will get some good sister time, and Emily will get a good look at college life. She has not been to the campus in over a year, so I think it will be fun for her to see Abbie's dorm room and her apartment for next year, not to mention meeting some of her friends, etc.

Spring Break!

Time has flown by and it is already Spring Break next week! Emily still loves her new school. She is so much happier and has so much more energy, but she is still looking forward to the break. We don't have any big plans. The weather is going to be lovely, so hopefully she'll get outside a bit. She has an anime show she wants to binge, and has talked about getting together with some friends, but nothing is firm yet.

As I mentioned in my last post, there was a school dance just before Valentine's Day. The guy she got set up with, Preston, is still her boyfriend and she says he is really nice. However, I haven't met him yet. 

As you can imagine, she was very excited about the dance.

And, as luck would have it, Abbie was home for a long weekend, so the sisters had some bonding time while Abbie helped Emily get ready.

Emily looked great, but the dance itself turned out to be pretty lame. Go figure, it's middle school. There was music and dancing in the gym and games, etc. in the cafeteria. However, everything needs to be G-rated, so the gym was lit up bright as day, there was no slow dancing allowed, and the music was way too loud. Definitely not what she had hoped for.

Emily is starting to think about what she wants to do with her summer, but we need to formalize the plan or the time will just slip by. I would like her to take a typing course, she has a driver's ed course she needs to take, and I expect she will spend some time in Minnesota. However, we need to arrange some out-of-the-house day-to-day activities. She has signed up to be a volunteer in the community, so that is one option, but we'll have to see what else we can come up with.

A New School

 

1st Day of School (again)

 

Emily started at her new school a few weeks ago and it has been a big change in so many ways. In addition to there being no uniforms, she has been pleasantly surprised to discover that she can eat in class, people are incredibly friendly, her teachers are nice, and there is basically no homework. Needless to say, she is much happier with the whole situation. She walks over in the mornings and walks back in the afternoons, which makes my life easier. She is allowed to bring a lunch from home so we can pack food that she actually likes, which means that she has more energy during the day. In the afternoons, she can get a workout in or just relax, depending on how she feels. It has been great and she is so glad that we decided to move mid-year. 

She has already submitted her requests for next year's classes and gone on a tour of the high school. It will be big -- 1,000 9th graders all on one campus together, but she doesn't seem to mind the increased size. Other excitement -- she is looking forward to a school dance that is coming up on February 13th. One of the girls set her up with a guy in her grade, so I guess she has a "date" for the dance. She doesn't know the guy much at all, so there is a bit of trepidation there, but I'm sure she will be fine. I'll be sure to get photos!

Merry Christmas?

Yes, it has been an insanely long time between posts and there is definitely news to report. But first, I need to do a Christmas update. As usual, we opened a few gifts on Christmas Eve and then saved the rest for Christmas Day. The gifts we opened on Christmas Eve tipped Emily off that something was wrong, very wrong. When she woke up on Christmas morning, she quietly said, "Mom, I think you and Dad used the wrong list."

Sisters

In fact, we had used the wrong list! She had started a list of clothes that she wanted for school and then separately started a Christmas list. Ultimately, she shared the clothing list with me, but not the Christmas list. I kept telling her that I didn't see the things she said she wanted on the list she shared, but neither of us took the time to put two and two together. So, the end results is that she got a bunch of clothes for Christmas, but nothing else. And, Chad and I now have more shopping to do! LOL.

How could this happen? And why does Emily need clothes for school? Well, both questions have the same answer. Since my last post, I bought a house, which we moved into on the 23rd. It is in a district with great public schools, so Emily will now be a public school kid - no more uniforms! That said, it also means that the past month has been incredibly hectic, which is why I just grabbed a list and ran with it. Oops.

Anyway, this means that Emily is switching schools midyear, which she is okay with. Her new school is across the street from our house, so she will be able to walk there when the weather is reasonable. Next year, she will switch to the 9th grade campus, which will be a drive (or a bus ride), but even that won't be more than 10 minutes away.

Halloween

Before it becomes too much of a distant memory, I thought I would give a quick Halloween update. First, Emily did some market research on the whole Killer Queen idea and decided to kill it. It turns out that "Killer Queen" means absolutely nothing to the kids in her grade. LOL. So, she just went as a prison inmate.

I thought I would be able to get more photos later in the day, but that didn't happen, so these are the only two that show her costume. She went to a Halloween party in the evening, but didn't do any trick-or-treating. On the one hand, she said she didn't want to, but on the other hand, she thought it was sad that she didn't. She did help me pass out candy, though. We had a good turnout, with people ranging from probably 4-years old to 20-years old. 

As is usually the case, the whole holiday went too quickly, but there is always next year!

Quick Check In

Yes, it has been a long time between posts, so I thought it would be good to do a quick check in, particularly since last week was a week of check ins for Emily. We had her 14-year check up with the pediatrician and her fall parent-teacher conference with her advisor. Not surprisingly, she is doing great on both fronts. She is officially 5'3" which is over an inch taller than last year at this time and she is expected to continue growing, so there is no doubt that she will be taller than both me and Abbie. School-wise, she is doing well in her classes. However, the workload this year has been significantly greater than the past few years, much to her dismay. Also disappointing, she feels like she hasn't really connected with any of her teachers this year. In past years there has always been at least one teacher that she really liked and that seemed to really like her. That definitely makes classes feel more like drudgery.

Emily has taken an interest in learning to sew, so I found a woman that she can take sewing lessons with. We had one lesson a few weeks ago and she took to it really well. Unfortunately, school has kept her so busy that she hasn't been able to practice with it since then. Hopefully she will still remember what she learned when she finally gets a chance to work on it again.

She is also busy with babysitting gigs. She now has two families in the neighborhood that she babysits for. The one job just requires her to play endless hours of dinosaurs and transformers with a 4-year-old boy. The other job is a bit more demanding in that there is a 6-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy, both of which sound pretty active. It tires her out, but both jobs are walking distance and both pay very well, so that is good.

Emily's favorite holiday, Halloween, is just around the corner. She has a prison inmate costume that she is planning to wear. She is considering splattering it with blood (red paint, obviously) and wearing a tiara with it, which would make her a Killer Queen. LOL. She has a party that she is planning to attend, but she isn't sure how late she is going to stay out on Thursday, as she has been so busy and tired lately. Regardless, I will be sure to get photos!

Back to School!

Ready for the back-to-school party

The summer that seemed like it would never end has gone too fast. Emily's class had their back-to-school party at Pinstripes last Friday. We went and set up her locker yesterday. Today is the first official day, although it is only a half day. 

1st day of school!

Her schedule involves the usual suspects - art, show choir, English, French, cross country, honors algebra, physical science, and world history. The biggest challenge will be for both of us to adjust our sleep schedule. I have become accustomed to going to bed late and sleeping in, so having to be out the door before 8am this morning was a little painful for me, but Emily was pretty chipper about it!

Keeping Cool

All in all, it hasn't been too bad of a summer so far. We have been trying to keep cool, though. We tried the pool one day. It felt lovely, but the chlorine bothered Emily's skin, even after just a couple of hours in the water. 

To try something completely different, we decided to take a short trip to Carlsbad, NM to see the caverns. It was still hot during the day, but the low humidity made the mornings and evenings really lovely. Of course, the caverns themselves were very cool, which felt great. 

Emily was okay with the trip but her opinion is that if you've seen one rock, you've seen them all, so she lost interest in the caverns pretty quickly. LOL.

 

Tomorrow, she will return home from another week in Minnesota, which provided some cooler weather, but also a lot of rain. She won't have to worry about that when she returns home. We aren't expecting rain any time soon (sadly).

We are just about three weeks from Emily's first day of school, so I have already started ordering her books and we have already picked up most of her school supplies. Now, she just needs to get that pesky summer work done!