Mid-quarter grades posted

There hasn't been much excitement around here. Abbie has been doing an excellent job of keeping on top of her homework and setting alarms for meetings with teachers, etc. They just posted mid-term grades last week and Abbie seems to be doing well in all of her classes. I have met all of her teachers now and they all seem really great. In particular, I really like her history teacher. She didn't seem to like him much at first, but I think that she is coming around. Key for me is that he has the kids working really hard and doing lots of critical thinking, so that it good.

Of course, as the semester has progressed, Abbie is starting to get more worn down. I think that she has been fighting a bug over the past week or so, which has taken a toll. With all of her homework, it is often hard for her to get to bed before 9pm and she often comes down grumbling in the morning. Despite the fatigue, she has realized how great it is to get to school early so that she can have time to unpack and chat with people before class starts, so she is often ready and pushing to leave the house by 7:10am!

Socially, she has fallen in with a group of 8th grade girls that she seems to have lots in common with. They are her "go to" crowd at lunch time and before school. I know one of the girls and she seems pretty level, so I assume that the others are, too. Of course, her best friend is still Eleanor, whom she has known for many years now. The girls met at summer camp and Eleanor lives about an hour from us, but the girls get together on breaks and seem to text every day and Facetime almost every day. So far, I think the plan is for Eleanor to spend Thanksgiving week with us, and I know that they are both looking forward to it -- making plans, etc.

The only other recent excitement is that Abbie has moved up to a 3/4 size violin. She clearly grew during the summer and is just about as tall as I am now. Not only does this mean a bigger, fancier violin, but it also means that she has been riding in the front seat of the car with us, which is definitely an interesting change for us.

As was the case with Emily, I realized that I have not taken anything for videos or photos over the past month, but I do have a couple of photos from our summer trip that I thought would be nice to post.

At Niagara Falls

Overall, I think that Abbie had a good trip this summer. One of the things that I really liked, and I think she did too, was the White Water Walk, which allows you to walk along the rapids that are well-beyond the actual falls. The power of the water at this point is just as impressive as it is at the actual falls, and being able to get so close to it is cool.

She also loved the trip to Cornell -- touring the university, seeing the house that we lived in when she was born, etc. Of course, there are lots of great schools in the world, but she seems to have it in her mind that she will be attending Cornell for college. :)

The Biltmore

As you can imagine with a twelve year old, there were lots of selfies this summer. This one is nice because it includes one of the Chihuly glass exhibits on display at the Biltmore. They were all really pretty, but this was probably one of our favorites.

As for upcoming events, Abbie is really interested in her Halloween costume. She would like to either make or buy a set of human-sized fully articulating bird wings. Easier said than done of course, but we still have time. She found some that she could buy that have a six foot span. I told her that would be plenty, but she measured it out relative to her body and wasn't so sure. I suppose that if we do manage to find wings, the next challenge will be to wear them without falling over!