Karis Continues Aging

Karis turned 14 at the end of May, and that same night, she had ballet class from 7:30-10pm.  I sent a message to her class and asked if they would all write her notes and asked the teacher if she would let class out early so we could take Karis to dinner. 

Kylie and Karis' ballet class is made up of 7 ladies plus a fabulous teacher, and 5 of the ladies (everyone except my girls) are adult women who enjoy the class for exercise or they just decided to try ballet later in life.  They are sweet and they are good friends to my girls.

The teacher wrote back and said, “Why don’t we let out early and have a party at the dance studio?  I’ll bring all of the decorations and a cheesecake and hide them, and you can sneak in during class and set it all up for when we come out?”

Sounds great!

The night before her birthday, Karis’ good friend from school and her mother went out with Karis and me to one of Karis’ favorite restaurants.  We celebrated Karis, the end of school coming up, and mourned the fact that her friend will likely be moving away after this summer.  It was a lovely evening, but it also happened to be the same restaurant where Karis wanted us to take her the next night after dance (she didn’t know about the cheesecake).

On the morning of her birthday, I made cappuccino muffins, and Keira made her a crown.

After school, she studied some for finals, and then went to dance class.

When she came out of her dance class, she was very surprised. 

All the girls in the class were excited to get out early, eat their teacher’s famous pineapple cheesecake, and just hang out together.  One of the dancers who couldn’t make it to practice still came to celebrate Karis!  It was a good night, but after filling up on dessert, we still needed to go get dinner.

 

Doug and Caleb had gone ahead to the restaurant to order because we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to eat by the time the restaurant closed. 

Oddly enough, this one closed at 10 during Ramadan.

The girls and I taxied over, and we made it in time, but of course, the girls were too full to eat much, and I didn’t ask anyone to sing because there was no way we could have stomached a dessert.

Thankfully, her birthday was during review week, so she didn’t have any homework, and we could just go home and crash.

God is chasing after Karis, and she has grown through a lot this year.  It’s an amazing thing to see God working in your children, and I love knowing that no matter what I do as a parent, He’s got this!