Speach for Event

A famous quote from Dr Seuss: You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the girl who'll decide where to go.

We are so proud of you Ashleigh Marie Eastwood. This is your time to shine! You have your whole life ahead of you and this is a major stepping stone for you.

I would like to tell you a little about our family and what we have learned to get where we are today. Ashleigh's father and I were only 18 yrs old and we were barely out of high school ourselves. Actually I was not out of high school yet, when we got married or when I gave birth to her. Being young parents ourselves, we had no idea if we were doing the right thing, or making the right decisions. And trust me we made a ton of wrong decisions. ( And Ashleigh will let us know when we made the wrong ones too!) When Ashleigh was barely 6 weeks old she had piloric stonosis, a lot of people have never heard of this and that also included us. It is when your stomach muscle closes up and no food or drink is able to go down into your stomachI knew when Ashleigh was very young that she would be very independent. Her first phrase was "I do it" She was very persistent and always wanted to do everything herself. That persistence has showed so much over the 18 years of her young life. When her brother was born, she was only two years old, she was a mother hen, she constantly hovered over him and taking care of him. Whenever he just whimpered she was there to put his pacifier in his mouth. Now that her brother is 16 she still constantly hovers over him and helps him with everything that he needs or wants. Clay constantly says that he has two moms. How lucky is that? Well Clay doesn't think he is too lucky, cause he gets told what to do by both of us.

Then when she was eight she got her first horse to ride in 4H horse shows. Dad brought her home Bullseye. Wow was she excited! She thought...