New Beginnings

Sophie and Miss Liz, her favorite violin teacher so far!  =)

Sophie with her beautiful new violin!

Sophie (on R) with some of the girls in her new Girl Scout troop.

I guess you could say that I took a summer hiatus from the blog.  Things just always seem to be busy around here but I do like having this to come back to so that I can remember special times and special things we've done.  This fall, Sophie has embarked on a new journey, middle school!  I think I was just as nervous, if not more so, than she was.  It's a big step up when your child goes from elementary to middle school.  There are so many changes from the earlier wake up time, earlier school start time/dismissal, and for Sophie it meant almost starting over too with tons of new kids because her school is one of five elementary schools that feeds into the middle school.  Her middle school is quite a bit farther from our house and she has to catch the bus at about 6:39 A.M.  (yikes!)  This is when we were usually starting to wake up at our house in the past.  

She's been back in school now for about 5 weeks or so now so she has had some time to adjust.  She's making new friends, getting used to the schedule, her new bus, etc.  Sophie's done great with adjusting to getting up early, setting an alarm, etc.  I'm really proud of her!  This summer, Sophie decided to try contact lenses instead of glasses and she's done great with adjusting to them too.  She also had braces put on her teeth.  

In May, Sophie tried out for the Williamson County Junior Orchestra and she made it!  She has taken violin lessons since she was in the first grade.  She will have rehearsals with the orchestra one night a week.  She was so excited about this opportunity!  The violin teacher that Sophie has had for the last three years was only going to offer violin lessons in her home.  We did that a little bit this summer.  We love Ms. Liz but since she doesn't live close to us, we are starting with a new teacher this week.  She will be coming to our home which I think will be wonderful!  Since Sophie has grown taller, we realized that she needed a bigger violin.  We had been renting one for a while but we decided to buy one this time.  It came in a couple of weeks ago and it is beautiful!

Since Sophie was changing almost everything else in her life-new school, new bus, new friends, new violin teacher, new orchestra opportunity, why not go ahead and change Girl Scout troops too?  Sophie decided to join a new Girl Scout troop that has girls in it from her school.  They seem like a really neat group of girls.  One of her friends from her old Girl Scout troop, Grace Dalenberg, also switched to the new troop.