Seventeen Years Old!

I have a frame for each of my children that has spaces for a total of 19 pictures of them from birth through age eighteen. I used one of Nadia's prom pictures for her seventeen-year-old picture, which means there is now only one empty spot in her frame. Time has just flown by. With her spending six weeks at camp this summer and presumably doing the same next summer, we have less than a year of her living at home with us before she starts living in Lynchburg, Virginia. Honestly, it's very bittersweet. I want our kids to be independent and fly from the nest. I don't want them to be part of the growing epidemic of young adults who are unemployed, not in school, and still living with their parents. However, I'm really going to miss her! Since she's already earned 34 credits through GCU and LU, she technically could have received her high school diploma from the state of Pennsylvania last month, but she is looking forward to her last year of doing a high school musical, last year of co-op, last year of Bible quizzing, etc. She's kind of a high school senior and a college sophomore at the same time, ha ha! The tuition is much cheaper as a dual enrollment student so that was another reason not to have her skip the twelfth grade. The subjects I still want her to complete for me during her senior year include physics, 12th grade English, one semester of economics, and one semester of government. 

She had her birthday celebration early to accommodate the schedules of her friends. Since she's in Indiana for Bible quizzing nationals on her actual birthday, we are treating she and her teammates to ice cream at Ivanhoes this evening. She received her birthday gifts early from her friends, Pop Pop, and Uncle Al and Aunt Millie. I brought one gift for her to open today (a book). Our other two gifts to her for her birthday are some money and a laptop that she can hopefully use for the next four years (until she graduates from college). She already knows that her main birthday gift next year when she turns eighteen will be a new cell phone, and her main Christmas gift will be a roundtrip ticket to visit Rachel in Chicago in the spring. I don't usually plan gifts this far in advance, but knowing she will be headed to college in about 14 months has made gift planning easier. 

Seventeen ways Nadia has changed over the last six months:

1. She has really been into baking and cooking! I'm thrilled to have those experiences with her, and I think the experience is helpful for the day in the future when she's on her own.

2. She visited Louisiana, which was her 49th state! She hadn't been looking forward to the state. She kept comparing it with Kansas (which is one of the lowest on her list), but after we were there, she decided it wasn't anything like Kansas, ha ha.

3. She completed three more courses through Liberty worth a total of 7 credits.

4. She's been working more hours at Warrior Run Petcare. Her boss is extremely kind. She gave Nadia a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day and an Easter basket filled with various goodies on Good Friday. She's also been accepting of Nadia taking weeks off for vacations and working at Camp Susque. Nadia has been making great progress toward saving money for her first car, which she plans to buy around the time she graduates from Liberty. Paul and I said we'd match whatever she saves towards that first car (within a certain limit of course).

5. She hasn't been driving nearly as much the last six months as she did the previous six months. She needs to learn how to parallel park, and then she plans to get her license this fall. She delayed doing it because we told our kids they have to pay for their car insurance.

All of the summer staff at Camp

6. She took the SAT. She was pleased with her reading/writing score but not her math score. She's going to need to take College Algebra before she takes Calculus at Liberty due to her math SAT score.

7. She attended her first prom. She went with a group of friends from our co-op. They plan to attend again next year. I thought she looked stunning in her purple gown! I love some of the pictures I took that night.

8. She is spending a total of six weeks at Camp Susque this summer. The week of June 8 was for counselor orientation. She'll be serving as a staff member (cooking, cleaning, etc.) for 1.5 weeks and serving as a counselor for 3.5 weeks from June 15-21 and July 5- August 2. The pictures in this post are from her time at Camp Susque earlier this month.

9. She and Ian have been in the habit lately of going on walks together 1-2 times a day. They often share a pair of earbuds and listen to the same music when they're in the van together or walking. Some of Nadia's newest favorite artists are Josiah Queen, Forrest Frank, and Joseph O'Brien. She hasn't heard any of those in person yet.

10. She and Ian have also been in the habit lately of watching VeggieTales together once a day. I'm not the only one who is going to miss Nadia when she goes away to college. Ian is also really going to miss her.

11. She earned a 4.0 in her homeschool classes as a junior, which was a first for her. 

12. She used to absolutely hate reading books on an electronic device. She vastly preferred reading a physical book. Recently she got multiple library cards and has been using them to check out audiobooks and also books that can be read on a Kindle app on her phone. 

13. If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then Nadia shouldn't need to see a doctor because the last couple of months she's gotten in the habit of eating at least one apple a day. 

14. Of the five of us, Nadia is the most likely person to skip breakfast. Lately, if she eats breakfast her preference has been to have a Cinnamon Toast Crunch bar. 

15. For many years her favorite ice cream flavor was chocolate chip cookie dough. Her current favorite is peanut butter ice cream with Oreos mixed into it.

16. She has been officially accepted as a residential student at Liberty University for the fall 2026 semester! Woohoo! 

17. She doesn't have bangs, but when she got her haircut this spring, she had the stylist cut some of the hair around her face much shorter than the rest.