School Photo, Updates, and Halloween

Junior Year School Photo

Abbie is definitely looking like a Junior in her annual school photo. Hard to believe that she is 16 already. Junior year is definitely keeping her busy, but she is handling it like a champ. In addition to her courses, she took the PSAT on October 12th (to potentially qualify for National Merit), then took the ACT on October 22nd, and will take the SAT on November 5th. The hope is that she scores well enough on either the ACT or the SAT so that she can be done with testing. If that doesn't happen, though, there is still plenty of time to re-take as needed. 

We had her parent teacher conference last week and Abbie's advisor, who is also her AP Literature teacher is highly complementary. Both her advisor and her AP US History teacher gushed and gushed about her on her report card, with comments like, "You write with a maturity beyond your years." and "You truly shine in our debates and discussions. The amount of knowledge you are able to eloquently share in the midst of a heated debate is like nothing I have seen before. I am in awe of you!" Not too shabby!

Mango

In other news, Abbie got to take a teacher's bearded dragon home for a long weekend a few weeks ago. Mango lived in our bathtub and we got to feed him live worms and crickets. He didn't do much other than lay under his heat lamp, but we did take him out regularly and let him "cuddle" with us. He liked our body heat and was usually pretty content to just hang out on our chests as we watched TV, etc. It was a fun diversion for the weekend, but not something that any of us would want to do long-term.

As for Abbie's annual check-up, there isn't too much to report. She is still 5'3" which puts her at the 34th percentile and means she is done growing. She beat my meager 5'1" height so that is something. We are still practicing driving and Abbie has her driver's test scheduled for the first week in December. She is desperate to get her license, partially because she is one of the last in her grade without one.

Mia Wallace

Finally, a Halloween update. The upper school students dressed up yesterday and Abbie decided to be Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction this year. It was an easy costume to put together and it looked really good. I kept begging her for a photo and I finally got one at the last minute. She didn't trick-or-treat, but did hang out with her friend Kyra for awhile. This is the photo that Kyra managed to snap. Looks like they were having fun!