Ivy's 17th birthday was last Saturday on the 19th of July. She had to work all day so we celebrated with some treats and talking about screaming together (but not doing it because she was at work). On Sunday we went to the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary where we fed birds and goats, saw peacocks, pigs and desert tortoises and laughed about the strange antics of all the birds.
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| This bird was willing to have someone pet it and would hold your hand too if you didn't mind the claws so much! |
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| Bill found a bird who wanted to get close to him and would say "Hi" back. |
Then later we went out to dinner at a sushi place called Kaizen. Bill knew the meaning of Kaizen (continual change for the better) from gymnastics, so when it started coming up in the business world 20 years later, he was prepared for it. It was fun to hear about from him.
At 17 years old Ivy is in the 49th percentile for weight and the 48th percentile for height at 5'4". She has very corrected vision and wears contacts daily. She is very fit, has started wearing makeup at times and is just starting to wear non-running clothes when doing other activities. She works at two different rec centers in Henderson (Black Mountain and Heritage Park) in the ticket booth for the pools, and has been getting a lot of hours in this summer once work finally started at the beginning of July.
Ivy has lots of friends but her best friend is Holland, who she knows from cross country running and Spanish classes. Holland doesn't do XC the same way as Ivy. Her parents make her go and this summer she has been sleeping in the parking lot of the school in her car during practices. Even though she is probably my most introverted child, Ivy has the biggest friend group in high school of any of my children.
Ivy is determined and a hard worker. She scheduled to take the ACT for the second time this summer and made a plan for how to improve her score with studying and reading. She took it at the end of June and scored 4 points better! She is also going to take the SAT in August.
Her plan is to go to UNR next fall and major in biochemistry. (But her dream schools are UC Davis, University of Washington, and Mizzou.) She will enter college with about 33 credit hours from AP and dual credit classes. She takes life very seriously, but she scorns her friends who have boyfriends who aren't funny. She would never date someone who wasn't funny. She still gives the best hugs, likes to try new foods and wishes she was bigger and taller.
17 years is quite a lot of living! I can't believe our little can-can skirt wearing, sacrament-song dancing, plushie-loving, screaming spark has grown up so much. She's barely even 14 anymore! Here's to many more, Ivy Ivy. 💓
2 comments:
Oh this post was everything! I LOVE your family! Happy late birthday Ivy! Tell her she is on my calendar but I think I forgot to text her because we were in Utah. The picture of Bill with the bird is wonderful. I love how Will still hangs out with you guys regularly. I would like to hang out with HIM regularly! I loved it that Ivy scorns her friends who get boys who aren't even funny. Any boyfriend of hers will have to be at least as funny as Will, which will be tricky. (I feel the same way about Willa and Wyatt--they are going to have to work hard to find people who are more fun than just hanging out with each other.) Also, Mizzou is only 2 hours away from me! I vote for that!
It's annoying when a comment I made and proofread Many times disappears on me.
This time through, I will say hi has always impressed me with her brains and her good sense. Obviously her hair and her sense of humor round things out. Don't you wish the pictures you get of birds were like you see them rather than the cages they're in.
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