16 years + 2 days

I know, I know, I am late with a birthday post, but rest assured. Abbie turned 16 on Thursday. Hard for any of us to believe, I think.

Looking sixteen!

 

It was a relatively quiet day. No party or anything like that, but the weather was nice so she and I went to lunch and enjoyed some patio time. Then, the whole family went to dinner at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. She received a few gifts for her birthday - dresses from Greg and Elizabeth (one of which she wore on the day), books and new pajama pants from us, and handmade earrings from Emily. At her request, we also secured her an apricot tart. It was a day late in arriving, but such is life.

Opening presents

 

Of course, the standard question for a 16 year old is, "Have you started driving yet?" We went to the DMV and applied for her permit just before leaving for MN. It is now waiting for us at home. She drove a few times before we left. She is very cautious, which is good. There is just no substitute for practice, though, so we will need to do lots of it when we get back home. 

Beautiful sisters

 

As for all of Abbie's recent travels, she LOVED her French camp. She came home raving about it. As far as I can tell, I would have hated every minute of it, but she totally embraced the rugged (to say the least) lifestyle. She also made friends with some interesting and proficient French speakers that she still has a group chat with (all in French). One of them actually lives within an hour of us, so they may even get together at some point.

Her next trip to the one week camp at the University of Chicago, was also good. Probably not as good as French camp, but I think it was still enjoyable. If nothing else, all of the talks that she attended made her even further appreciate the value of a good teacher in stimulating (or killing) a student's interest in a subject. Some of the instructors that she had were incredible; others were terrible. What a world of difference between the two!

Sadly, the end of summer is in sight and Abbie has a ton of summer work to complete before the first day of school. AP Literature has students reading the Bible and doing a ton of assignments related to it. There is also a small amount of work for AP US History. I think she has the option to do some prep for AP Chemistry, but I haven't heard much about it. Beyond her school work, she is doing some test prep. She is planning on the PSAT on October 13th to see if she can qualify for National Merit and then is planning on the ACT on October 22nd for colleges that will permit her to submit standardized test scores. They say that Junior year is the toughest and I can see why.