Asher turns 16

Happy 16th birthday to my oldest!! I am dying a little because I feel like this marks the start of Asher really growing up. We'll be getting his license requirements finished up this week, so he'll be legally driving within the week! Driving will sever his time from us a little more. While I am fairly happy he no longer needs a personal chauffeur and can drive himself to his own activities at all hours, all over, in and out of the city, I have reservations about what this shift means long term.  This kid (yep, I can still call him that- I'm his mom, ha!) is awesome.  He is a great big brother, son, friend, and student.  We are so proud of who he is and who he is becoming.  He's responsible, dependable, funny, hardworking, and tries to do good things with his time.  We never have to get this kid up for early morning seminary or remind him to do his homework. He worked his first job starting last spring as a lifeguard at Valley Pool, has kept his grades stellar, made student government again this year, made the Soccer team at the High School, plays for his club team, has leadership roles at church and balances it all so well.  He plays soccer with his youngest brother, Dawson- training him in skills beyond his age level (slide tackling, keeper...yikes!), and also hangs out with Beckett- those two love to watch movies together, play basketball in Asher's room on the mini-hoop, and just hang out.  His interests are evolving all the time- he seems to love history and the constitution (and is on a competitive We The People Team this year), soccer, Marvel movies, finding names for us to take to the temple, watching sports (soccer at the top of the list, of course), nachos, and Manchester United (oh dear, sometimes he uses British words in place of our American ones- and adds an accent to boot!- a fan through and through). 

For his birthday, we celebrated by going to a Lobo Basketball game (ironically, as we went up to the ticket booth to purchase our tickets, people stopped and gave us some - we all went to the game for free!), and ate at his choice- Freddy's. On his actual birthday, we went bowling that morning, celebrated in the afternoon, and happened to get in on a temple reservation for baptisms at the temple that night.  It was so great celebrating this awesome son of ours.  Asher- Happy 16th Birthday!!  We love you so, so, so much and can't believe how fast you're growing up!