Lasts and New Beginnings

On the same day that Julia performed her last elementary school concert, we made the painful decision to withdraw her from the school that has become our community.  You can see from the pictures that she is very invested in this community that has been her home away from home for eight years now, so while there is hope and joy in this decision, there is also heartbreak.  Please pray for me as I struggle to make peace with this decision.  It is purely financial.  If there were a way around it, we would not withdraw her.  Pray for Julia and for the jealousy that may ensue as she watches her friends move on and as her siblings continue at the school where she has had many good years.  Julia has great opportunities at her new school, but she has made her mind up that this will only be a one year break because we only need a one year break from her tuition.  We would rather she go willing to invest herself in this new school.  Julia makes friends easily, and we hope that will be true for middle school too.  If she ends up having a lonely year, it will be painful for all of us, but there are lessons learned even in that.  We are raising adults here, and life does not always give you your dreams.  It often disappoints, and if our children never face disappointments, adulthood is much harder.  I am tired of hard, but we can do hard.

As usual the kids did not disappoint.  They have a pretty phenomenal music teacher, so these concerts are always a joy.

We love Julia's teacher.  She could not have had a better fifth grade school year.

Julia also happened to be student of the week this week.  I guess we did alright on our video for her.  We were new to that process, but it has been shared with the principal and may also be shared with another teacher or two before she brings the flash drive home.  I plan to show it to family at her birthday party but hope there are no hurt feelings.  We really didn't include extended family in the video despite their huge importance to her because we were already running long on it.

Of course the kids then convince the parents that an after-party is necessary at a nearby ice cream shop.  It's not so hard to convince us.  They have the best ice cream in town.

We've spent fourteen years on this campus.  We're gonna miss this place, but we hold on to many sweet memories.