Finishing up Sophomore Year!

Fun with Chad's new iPhone camera

Sophomore year is officially over, but it definitely took a bit of work to get to this point. Abbie's class trip to D.C. was a whirlwind. She saw a ton of stuff - the Jefferson, FDR, Eisenhower, and MLK Memorials, Mount Vernon, Arlington National Cemetery, the National Archives, Capitol Hill, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Being the big history fan that she is, she enjoyed a lot of it. Naturally, she took tons of photos, and people took photos of her, so she sent me a few during the week.

Happy about late night boba

Abbie & Mr. Arnold

The last photo is of Abbie and her government teacher. He ended up being one of her favorite teachers this past year. This is his last year teaching, so it was his final time taking students to D.C. I'm sure it was bittersweet for him.

Despite being incredibly busy, Abbie was able to sneak in a dinner with Greg and Elizabeth, who were kind enough to drive into the city to meet her. It has been a few years since she has seen them, so I am sure that she seemed more grown up than they remember.

When Abbie returned from D.C., she pushed through an AP Psychology exam, an oral defense in government in which she defended her proposal for a federally funded bullet train system, and final exams in Math, English, French, and Chemistry. Grades aren't released until June 6th, so we'll have to wait to find out how it all went.

Ready for her oral defense

In other news, we have misnamed the cat. We have been calling her Pumpkin, but we should be calling her Cortez because she is a cold-blooded killer. She regularly comes home with a lizard in her mouth, often manages to get herself a bird, and is constantly on the hunt. This is despite the fact that she has free-range crunchies, Fancy Feast daily, and gets intermittent treats - scallops, shrimp, anchovies, etc.

Sporting a few feathers from a recent kill

A couple weekends ago, she apparently got herself a baby opossum. The girls discovered it in the bushes, still alive, and rescued it. We kept in a box in the garage overnight and Abbie worked the phones like crazy until she was able to make plans to bring it to an opossum rescue person the next morning. The woman took Beep (yes, they named him) home with her, got him cleaned up, and was kind enough to send us an update - she believes that he will make a full recovery and might even be able to be re-released into the wild when he gets bigger. Abbie was very relieved that it all worked out and that she was able to save him.