Happy Birthday Ashley!!

Today is Ashley's 20th birthday! No longer a teenager! Ashley moved home and is going to school at Weber. She works at a Zion's Bank Branch right there in Ogden. She works 32 hours and goes to school full time. She ususally stays here during the week then sometimes goes down to Provo with her friends for the weekends but is home on Sunday to go to her singles ward. She loves to work out and finds time to do it about 4 times a week. Her life revolves around homework, spending time with her friends and writing Cole and receiving letters from him. He has been out 3 and 1/2 months. She lives week to week to receive those letters.

Ashley, like all my girls, works hard at what she wants. I've lately been going through all her pictures to make her DVD that I have done with all my girls. One of the things that I remember that was a real challenge for her, was her speech. A year before she went to kindergarten she was diagnosed with a lateral lisp. She began speech then. She went up until the sixth grade! At the end we hired private lessons for her because she no longer wanted to be excused from class to go and have her speech lessons. It was very hard for her to have Lindsey only have it for about one year and then she having to stay in it for 8 years! One day it just clicked and she finally got it! It was a long hard time for her. Now, sometimes, when she is with her friends and they are meeting some guys, and when they are not really interested in them, she will start talking with her lisp again. Now she can laugh at it.

Ashley and I have both agreed that we don't really get along. We can admit it and we laugh at it because we know it. But that doesn't stop us from anything. Yesterday morning we went on a run together. I'm so glad that I'm her Mom. I love you Ash!! I hope you have a good day.

Love, Mom

P.S. She just got flowers delivered from Cole! How sweet!