Dear Halle,

Happy 16th birthday!! What a big occasion for my favorite girl. I just love watching you grow, blossom, and be uniquely YOU. You stand by what you love and follow your heart.

You love being Dash’s mommy and he loves being your baby. He is so anxious in the afternoon until you get home from school and just snuggles up in your neck as soon as you pick him up. You take such good care of him and every time I see the two of you together, I am so happy you finally have your dog.

School has been fun this year. You have loved Marching Band and have improved a lot! Me. Carmichael recently asked you to audition for a special honor band. That’s so cool!

You are trying something new this year and auditioning for the school play. I am so proud of you for taking a risk and going for something outside your comfort zone. You have worked really hard, and regardless of how it all turns out, I feel so proud and happy you are doing this.

You just finished your Personal Progress and earned your YW Recognition award. Your last goal was to cook meals for your family for two weeks. I loved that one!! One of my other favorites was when you sewed your own adorable dress this summer. You did such a good job and really figured out most things by yourself.

We allowed you to get Snapchat, your first social media on your birthday. We made you sign a social media contract and you called it “excessive” but signed it anyway. We had a good chance to talk things out and get in the same page. I always want to be able to do that. We can disagree and still love each other. And we can talk until we understand each other.

You are smart, fun, kind, beautiful, fun and a loyal friend. I love being your mom and am so grateful everyday that I got the best daughter in all the world.

Love,

Mom

Your 16th birthday party is one we’ll never forget. 16 Weird, Wacky, Fun and Delicious things in Denver. Without further ado, here they are:

1. International Church of Cannibas. We played Weedopoly while we waited for our laser light mediation presentation in the bright, beautiful chapel. I thought the whole thing was really cool!

2. Fifty-Two 80’s. This fun shop provided us with a lot of dress up fun. I got to teach you all about Popples, banana clips and hyper color shirts.

3. Voodoo donuts! You got the one with Froot Loops on top.

4. Strike a pose at the CO flag Mural.

5. Tattered Cover bookstore. We gave everyone 10 minutes to search the store and choose a book they think you would love. You then got to read the synopsis on all of them and choose your favorite one to purchase. The winner was a Dragon book picked by Addie.

6. Get a pic with the Big Blue Bear

7. Play the painted pianos on 16th street. Grace played a Pink song and you all sang along. It was so fun!

8. Cat Alley. There are 300 cat statues in this alley near Larimer Square. We had a blast trying to find all of them. I think we got to 175. There were cats on balconies and rooftops, on lights, tucked in corners, they are everywhere!

9. Burritos and Queso at Illegal Pete’s.

10. Christmas Tree at Union Station

11. Sliding down the bike rails at Millennium Bridge. This was hilarious to watch.

12. We taught your friends how to call a Lyft. Our drivers name was Dustin and I tasked all the girls with asking him questions. Some of the ones you all came up with were, “what is your favorite type of noodle?” And “what is your favorite type of pattern?” We found out he likes a snail pattern in a quilt and that his wife just finished making a beautiful quilt for their bed.

13. Cat Company. This little cafe’s claim for fame is the fact that cats roam freely around the space. There are toys and beds and food. It was fun to play with the kitties, and we even saw a fight or two break out between the furry felines.

14. Inventing room dessert shop. We tried almost everything on the menu from “spaghetti and meatballs” to the Harry Potter tasting to fried ice cream and the Unicorn Sundae. We even got the “Really Really Cold Cheetos. This was a perfect teen dessert stop!

15. RiNo street art. We were on the hunt for a Stranger Things Mural I’d read about, but I wasn’t sure we’d be able to find it. We did! And Halle was so happy! It was really cool—they did a great job depicting lots of scenes and icons from the show. We loved wandering the little back alleyways and discovering cool street art.

16. A very, very late dinner at Shake Shack. (Like 9:30pm) A perfect end to a perfect day!

Then home to sing on open presents. How cute is Halle’s Dragon cake? She made it all herself and spent 2 days getting it just right, even adding coins to act as treasure as a final finishing touch. We were all too stuffed to eat the Dragon that night so we saved him for Sunday Dinner with the Rowberry’s where we celebrated Claire, Josh, Max and Halle. The little kids thought it was especially fun to chop the dragon’s head off 🙂 Happy Birthday Halle Girl! You are loved more than you will ever know.