Abby Finishes 6th Grade

Before the summer ends, I'm trying to get caught up by finishing posts about the girls' previous school year. Here is a rundown of Abby's second semester of 6th grade at Hornedo Middle School. Most of my pictures are from Band functions since that's the main extra school activity she's involved in. This first picture is from their contest. Abby played with the Symphonic Band and she walked in first for her row and that's how we knew that she was first chair. She had kept it a secret from us until that concert. They played really well and I was so proud of her.

Their final school concert was played at Hornedo. The beginner band was conducted by a student teacher who had been helping out that semester. Abby performed with both the beginner and symphonic bands. 

The symphonic band had another contest during the school day at Coronado High School that Taryn and I were able to attend. My parents met us there too. There were not very many people in the audience since it was during the day, so we cheered loudly for them. They played the same contest songs that they had been working on all semester and they did great. They were awarded the highest score. 

Abby has an iPod that she uses at school for the internet and also to text me and a few friends. Here are some of her pictures that she used for her profile. Definitely your typical tween, serious-face, selfies, but I love them and made her send them to me too. 

Abby took this picture after a young women's activity where the girls got their hair and makeup done. She looks so grown up and beautiful.  

At the end of the school year, the beginner band plays a final concert at Western Playland. I chaperoned so I was able to be with Abby all day. Here's a picture of the beginner band horn section before they performed. 

And here's a picture of the entire band as they performed with a closeup of Abby as first chair. Because Abby was playing in two bands this semester, she had to learn twice as many songs, but she was very dedicated in practicing after school and also on the weekends with me. She is so talented and has picked it up very quickly. I'm excited to see how well she does in upcoming years. 

After the concert, they were able to just enjoy the park and all the rides. I followed Abby and her friends around and met a lot of her new friends from this year. Here she is with three of her band friends - Lexi, Carrie, and Braelinn. 

The final band concert was a huge combined effort with another middle school, Brown, and with Franklin High School where both Brown and Hornedo feed into. Mr. Beach, the Franklin band director, is also the director I work with when I play with the wind symphony, so that was fun. The group was huge and they played some numbers separately and then one final number all together. It was so fun to hear such a large group play together and to know it consisted of 6th-12th graders. 

After that concert, it took forever to find Abby, but we were able to grab her with a few of her friends for one last band picture. Her she is with Mary, Carrie, and Braelinn. 

I had to have a last day of school photo, so here's Abby on the last day of school. They have uniforms at their school with the occasional free dress day, so luckily the last day of school was free dress. She survived 6th grade and her first year in middle school! Academically, she ended the year with all As as well. We're so proud of all of her hard work, determination, courage, and good attitude she had during this year at school. 

Even though that was all the school pictures, I've decided to add just a few more pictures from her summer camps. Abby was able to attend three volleyball camps this summer in preparation for trying out for the school team next fall. Her first camp was right after school was let out and it was at UTEP. She played from 8 to 5 for three days straight. She really enjoyed working with the UTEP volleyball team and meeting new friends. Here they all are with the UTEP mascot, Pete the miner.

Abby also attended camps at Franklin High School and Coronado High School. I didn't get any pictures at Franklin, but I took a few of her warming up on the final day at Coronado. She's really excited to try out for the school team and has been working hard all summer to keep up her skills.

Two weeks after school was let out, Abby was able to attend a different kind of camp - Girls Camp for church. She's been in Young Womens since December, and every summer there is a Girls Camp held in Cloudcroft, NM. Abby was a first year and was so excited to go. I took pictures as they waited for everyone the morning they left.

Here's Abby with a few other first years from our ward: Abby, Braelinn, Carrie, and Devry. She had such a great time and came home telling us of all the fun and spiritual adventures that she had. She learned all the Girls Camp songs that she ended up teaching her sisters and she was even asked to bare her testimony at the fireside where we saw a slideshow of camp.  

Her favorite story to share was about how they were trying to do an activity, but were not able to start because of the rain. One of the leaders said a prayer and told the girls to also pray for the rain to stop so they could continue with their planned activities. Abby said as soon as they finished the prayer, the rain stopped. She will always remember how through faith, prayers can be answered. She met a lot of new friends and really loved being with them. I'm so happy that she had such a great time. She's just growing up too fast! In just a few short months, she'll be a teenager! I can't quite believe it, but we really are just so proud of the beautiful young lady that she is. We love you Abby!