Unabashed Bragging

Zinash enjoying some hot chocolate

This past week we got some great news from Zinash's teacher. The school had given Zinash a test to determine the progress she has made in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing in English. Last year she was given the test at the beginning of the school year and scored a 1 out of 5 which meant that she was a very beginning English learner. That wasn't a surprise! At the end of the school year, she was re-tested and also scored a 1. Based on the descriptions given of each level, I thought she was more accurately a 2, but it didn't show up on the test. This fall they re-tested her again and she scored a 3! She has been working hard at school and at home on her homework. We are so proud of her!!

We also found out this past week that Zinash was being recognized for some artwork she submitted in a bookmark contest which is sponsored by the library. We went to a ceremony today to celebrate the contest winners and she was awarded 2nd place for the grade 3-5 division for our city!

Zinash with her award and her bookmark

A closer look at her bookmark

I am proud of her hard work at school and love her artwork, but the thing that made me most proud of her today was something that she did this evening. As she has gotten older, playing and running around with her little sister has lost some of its luster. Tonight we were at an APU football game and a bunch of kids were playing and running around in a grassy area behind one of the endzones. My social little Mihret really wanted to play with the kids and tried several times to get into their game, but she was younger than the other kids and they didn't seem interested in including a little kid. She came back over to us feeling sad and then went back over to try again. I looked over and saw her standing around watching the other kids play. Before I knew it, Zinash called Mihret over and said, "Hey Mihret! Wanna play tag?" Zinash spent the rest of the evening running around playing with her little sister. Mihret went from sad panda to utter joy.

Utter Joy

Gotcha!

Zinash had a lot of fun too, but I knew that her decision to play tag with her sister was motivated by her love for her sister rather than a personal desire to play tag. It was a precious moment and absolutely filled my heart with joy.

Zinash continues to amaze us. She is a remarkable girl and we are so blessed to have her as our daughter!