Tanner and Ashlyn's Birthday

The twins turned 18!  I really can't believe how fast time has flown.  It has been hard to swallow that they are adults.  They are both preparing for their next adventures and we used their birthdays as reasons to load them up with college and mission gear.  We also spent all summer trying to cram in fun and amazing experiences before they took off.

One such experience was the opportunity to fly in and help pilot a small Cessna style airplane.  Tanner was a little nervous at first, and Ashlyn was super excited, but by the end of it, they both had a very memorable and exciting experience.

We spent their actual birthday at the cabin, which is both of their favorite place in the world to be.  Tanner wanted to be at the cabin as much as possible before he left for his mission in Omaha Nebraska.

For their birthday cake, we had brownies and ice cream, along with candies and fixins to make the brownies more festive.

A few of Ashlyn's birthday gifts: Mixing Bowls and an Apple I-Watch, Grandma Kris also gave her a cute hat and some fun apparel.

Towels for college from Charlotte!

And Tanner got the Nebraska Flag, which was fun to hang up in Dad's office to make a temporary Home MTC.

And a University of Nebraska shirt and socks from the kids to get him excited for his mission.

To celebrate this huge milestone and a little because we had a foreign exchange student from Spain, we hung a Pinata and made it extremely challenging, with Tanner even falling off the porch at one point.

 10 Things About Tanner

1.  He is incredibly competitive and athletic.  He had a strong desire to compete in High School State tournaments and he pushed so hard learning to love running endurance races and picking up hurdling.  He pushed hard to beat his opponents and went to state in Cross Country and Track.  He sets difficult goals for himself and works hard to complete them.

2. He has endurance.  He had so many injuries that he had to work through this year as he quite literally almost ran his legs off.  He had constant issues with his knees, shins, ankles, etc, but ran through the pain so that he could make his state goals.

3. He is vain about his hair.  He has quite thick and curly hair and getting him to cut it this year was no small feat.  By the time he would finally be ready for a haircut, he would about break the clippers with his thick hair.

4.  He is a tease!  He really likes to tease and pick on his little siblings.  They think it is all good fun and they love to pick on Tanner to see the reaction he will give them.

5.  He has a funny sense of humor and with his quiet and reserved nature often catches me off guard with a humor burn or observation... like when he told me I didn't have a "Mom-Bod" after I had complained that I had gotten old and got a Mom-Bod.  He said, "You don't have a Mom-Bod" and I was touched and about thanked him until he said, "You have a Dad-Bod" and cracked him and Ashlyn up at his clever joke.

6.  He has an amazing memory, especially for scriptures, and could retain most of the things he was learning in Seminary.  He constantly blew our minds as he referred us to scripture references and could re-cap the weekly lesson from the scriptures perfectly.

7. He is very smart and graduated with a 4.0 GPA, earning him a full-ride scholarship to BYU-I or a pretty decent scholarship to USU if he chooses.  He really is a genius taking many advanced placement and college credit classes including Calculus!  He loved high school and was actually quite sad to graduate!

8. He loves strategy games and is very good at them.  He is almost impossible to beat at Chess.  He is also very good at Catan or Ticket to Ride.  He has a fun group of friends and they have some strategy games that take up to 10 hours to play!  He often comes away champion.

9.  He is a mess!  I don't even know how he sleeps at night because his bed is full of dirty clothes, books, garbage, etc.  His truck was full of graduation gifts and garbage that he left in there for months and months.  I often take money and important items from him that he leaves laying around and hide them until he can tell me what's missing.  I am hoping that someday he will take care of those things that are important to him.

10.  He has a strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and has always had the desire to serve a 2-year mission for the Lord.  He will be serving in the Omaha Nebraska Spanish Speaking mission starting August 22.  We can't wait to hear about his experiences and watch his testimony grow!

10 Things About Ashlyn

1. She loves to play with her food (and has loved playing with her food ever since she was a baby!) And creates what we lovingly refer to as "food experiments" where she creates unique recipes that mostly only ever sound good to her.

2. She loves to be with her friends.  She has an awesome group of friends and they are always up for a good time, whether they travel into town to find a fun activity or sit out in the hot tub at our house and watch a movie, they never lack for laughs and a good time.

3. She gets to live with five friends in college.  She is taking her friend group with her to live in Nauvoo House at BYU-I and can't wait for the good times she will have with Cassidy, Bekah, JoAnna, and Caselle.

4. She graduated Valedictorian!  She kept a 4.0 GPA all throughout high school and was one of the graduating valedictorians.  She got to shake everyone's hand as they walked at graduation.

5. She wracked up so many scholarships!!  Not only did BYU-I offer her a full tuition scholarship, she also had thousands of dollars worth of other scholarships from organizations throughout the community.  She is one smart girl.

6.  She is so artistic and loves to design and create art.  She is often working on creating a project, sometimes jewelry, sometimes graphic art, and sometimes just sketches or paintings.  She is thinking about going into graphic design or marketing and will be taking classes on that path starting this Fall.

7.  She is ALWAYS cold.  No matter how hot it is outside or inside, she is often seen wrapped up in a blanket with fuzzy socks proclaiming how cold it is.

8.  She has a hilarious sense of humor and is so quick-witted.  She often has clever observations or quick comebacks that keep us all laughing.  She often kicks our butts at Jackbox games because of her funny responses and drawings. 

9.  She thinks she is a NASCAR driver and loves her black Lincoln Mercury that she got to take to college.  We often hear stories much later after they happen about drifting, cookies, and top speeds.  She gets serious road rage - you don't want to get in front of her going slow!

10.  She has a very strong testimony.  She loves the Lord and she can't wait for her turn to serve a mission.