Anna is 15!

Our beautiful, smart, funny, caring Anna is 15! She is such a wonderful person, inside and out. This has been a big year for her, leaving the school that she attended for 9 years and joining a much larger class of kids at a big, new high school. She has met many great new friends, kept some old friends, and has transitioned into high school very well. She has risen to the academic expectations and challenges, and has learned to manage her studying independently and budget her time with a new class schedule (A/B days). She has joined a couple of clubs and has been accepted to be an Admissions Ambassador next year, helping to introduce prospective and accepted rising freshmen to Gibbons. While her official sports career is over (or paused), she has stayed active in her all-girls' PE class, and I would say that she considers babysitting to be a workout, as well. She's taken it upon herself to apply to a few jobs and hasn't had much luck yet (most places won't hire kids younger than 16), but she is quite busy with petsitting and babysitting.  She has many regular clients around the neighborhood and does a great job caring for dogs, cats, and kids! 

What amazes me about Anna is her awareness and care for others. She somehow seems to know all of the 400 freshmen at Gibbons and something about them. I get a kick out of pointing out a kid at carpool and she will say "oh yeah, that's XYZ and he is friends with Stella's sister's friend's brother", etc. She is friendly without being loud, with a large social circle that somehow still feels intimate because she values each friendship individually. She is a loving and true friend, often supporting her friends and family when they are struggling with something. She really values relationships, which I think is not easy at her age and in the social climate today. Additionally, she is respectful and cooperative and is great at offering perspective in a gentle and thoughtful way. She also keeps her sister humble ;)

What else? At this moment, she is saying that she's interested in becoming a psychologist. She plans to take the AP Psychology class junior or senior year to test the waters. I think she would be great at that because she's very good at building trust, listening, and noticing details and trends in people. She was ok with biology this year, despite a heavy workload and demanding teacher. She did not, however, enjoy the frog dissection lab!

Her interests include: beauty, fashion, music, and friends. Nearly every weekend, she has at least one outing or hangout planned with friends. She is very excited about learning to drive and becoming independent in that way. She loves to be entertained and also likes to make other people smile. She feels deeply, and that is a wonderful quality. She is truly a delight, and we love having a front seat in watching her grow up! This is going to be another big year for her, culminating in her Sweet 16th birthday. We love her so very much.