I'm 15 for a moment, caught between 10 and 20

Ammon turned 15 in January. His request for his birthday meal was "salad". That's a first!!! He's started liking green salad with Zesty Italian dressing on it recently. I asked him what he wanted to go along with the salad, and he replied "steak and mashed potatoes". That's more like what I was expecting from him!!!

Check out that big plate of salad!

For his birthday meal, Grandma and Grandpa T., Uncle Malachi, and Ammon's friend JJ joined us. After dinner, Ammon opened his gifts.

He got new church pants, dress shirts, ties, jeans, ski goggles, cash, nutella, and a new radio and seat covers for his truck.

Checking out the new radio that was installed in his truck.

 For dessert, he chose to have brownies with ice cream. I made homemade brownies (for the 2nd time in my life), and they turned out pretty good. I totally forgot to put the candles in the sheet of brownies, for us to sing "happy birthday" to him as he blows them out. Instead, I cut up the brownies and put them on everyone's plates before I remembered that we still needed to do that (whoopsie!), so using the few remaining brownie pieces that were left in the pan, I scooted them close together on a plate and then added the candles, and then we sang to him!

Thankfully, he didn't care! It was nice that JJ joined us for dinner and dessert--since he originally came over to have Ammon help him with a school homework assignment and was completely unaware that it was Ammon's birthday until he got to our house!!

It was Ammon's turn for a family party this year, and he chose for us to go skiing/snowboarding together at Lost Trail. We had every intention of going, but due to his basketball schedule, we couldn't go for two weeks after his birthday. Unfortunately, we didn't go then because I was sick and so was Ammon. So we decided to postpone it another week, but then I was even sicker with strep throat and Ammon had minorly hurt his knee at a basketball game the day before we planned to go and didn't feel like snowboarding. So then we said we would go President's Day weekend (an entire month AFTER his birthday), but by then, the snow in the valley had melted and he said he'd rather spend the day golfing with friends than skiing with the family. I felt bad that it never worked out for us to go for his birthday. This is the 2nd year in a row that his birthday ski/snowboarding plans have been affected because of illness!

However, the money that was going to be spent on a family ski day still got spent on him: he got his driver's license AND contact lenses in January!!! He once told me he would never wear contacts, but after much persuasion from me during the beginning of his basketball season, he changed his mind and really likes wearing them now! Also, he's been driving his truck to school a lot since he got his license, and he likes having the freedom of having his own transportation; but unfortunately for us, the car insurance rates have DOUBLED, which was a shock to our financial budget!