BIG HUGE 16th Birthday for Ashlee!!

Big day here at the Walstad shack! Ashlee is officially "sweet 16" today! She took her driver's lisence exam at the Plymouth DMV and passed!!!! She was so nervous when she got out of the car to tell me her face was a shade of red I had never seen it before!! SHe filled out her paperwork, got her driver's lisence pic taken and we headed home! After calling everyone who had been praying for her (she wanted to surprise Katie & Howie when we went there-but Grandma Pat had already told them...) we got home, and Ashlee was surprised by a beautiful cookie bouquet her Granma Kay, Koo-Koo and Grandpa Doug had sent her and a beautiful floral arrangement from her Auntie Susie and Uncle Ray in Houston! We then took her Galant and gas card (a holiday debit card) and I showed her how to fill her tank and use her debit card!! No problems there! Then we got home and she took her maiden voyage without a parent, she took Alex to Windsong Golf Club and back. Mike and I stood on the porch and it was surreal! She is a VERY good driver though....but still, it felt scary! We then headed out to the new Japanese steak/sushi restaurant Kobe in Plymouth. We had an AWESOME dinner there! We loved it! And then to Katie & Howie's for REAL Baker's Square french silk pie, which Katie had found an open Baker's Square in Eden Prairie and drove there to get it for Ash! What a great surprise and treat for her!! Pat, Tom and Steve with kids in tow also came over and we visited and then home for Ashlee's math homework, The Idol and news on the political front! Here are some pics of the highlights of the day!

Thanks so much to EVERYONE for making Ashlee's 16th birthday so special and memorable and for caring enough to pray for her about her driver's liscence test and for your thoughtful gifts and farway pie trip!! Ashlee would not be who she is without all of your influences and both Mike and I are so grateful and thankful for your presence in her life (and Alex's too!) She had the BEST birthday!!





Ashlee, Katie and Ike at the Dettloff's, where we had fab french silk from Baker's square!
Ashlee with her delish sushi, we had lobster rolls, spicy tuna rolls and Kobe rolls-we liked the spicy tuna the BEST!

ALex and Mike with their fancy sashimi dinners-Alex's even lit up from underneath! They also had their fave Japanese sprite's!! What a treat!

Ashlee, Mike & Alex gathered around a Kobe beef appetizer that you cook on a hot rock! It was quite YUMMY!

Ashlee & her new Gaylant-Catherine's car which we bought for her! Note the happy bday sign above the front door of our house!

Ashlee & "crazy Ale" he just had to be in the pic!!

Ashlee & Alex headed out for the maiden voyage-driving a car without parents!!

Ashlee with her beautiful cookie bouquet and flowers!!

The cookie bouquet!! It smelled scrumptious when it arrived, I wanted to rip open one of the cookies and eat it...no one would know...right!