SUPERIOR, Colo. — On a recent May afternoon, four teenagers were gathered around a kitchen table. They won't have many opportunities to gather like this, all together, for the next few years.
Amanda, Sydney, Ryleigh and McKenna Selby are all headed off to college soon. It will be the first time these quadruplets will learn to truly live separate, independent lives after 18 years growing up together.
“I think this summer is going to be full of anticipation for all of us. I mean, we're going to do our activities, but really the big end game is college, and that’s what we’re all looking forward to,” Sydney said.
“I’m really excited. I’m excited for the next phase of life. I think it's time,” McKenna said.
But along with feelings of excitement, there are nerves, too.
“We’ve had our whole lives together. So the idea of living in different states, and not seeing each other every day, not being across the hallway – that scares me,” she said. “I’ve never lived that way before.”
“I’m ready for people to just know me for me,” Amanda said. “And not being known [just] as a Selby, or a quad.”
The sisters were born in August 2003.
9NEWS covered their family’s story through the years. Parents Bonnie and Brian Selby turned to fertility treatments to help them grow their family. When the quadruplets came home from the hospital, big sister Brooke was there to greet them, along with many other family members and community members. It was a big job handling all the diaper changes, feedings and sleep schedules.
Family photo albums show the girls’ evolution from babies to toddlers, often dressed in the same outfits or color-coded outfits, to now teenagers with their own interests and hobbies.
Sydney pursued martial arts and basketball. After Amanda quit dance, she began playing competitive softball. McKenna competed in gymnastics for years, and still coaches now. She was also a pole vaulter in high school. Ryleigh left gymnastics for volleyball, and recently started playing tennis, too.
All that, and the girls shared one car in high school.
“It is probably the greatest conflict of anything,” McKenna said. “It takes a lot of discussion to figure out who gets the car, who pays gas!"
They started finding their independence as teenagers. When the pandemic sent them home for remote learning and into forced time together, the girls rediscovered the importance of their sisterhood bond.
“During quarantine, it gave us a chance to spend more time together, do school together. Go into each other’s rooms. We’d come down during lunch and we’d actually make lunch and eat together, eat with mom,” Ryleigh said.
“Mac and cheese and dino nuggets was the go-to,” Amanda said.
“That time just brought us together in a way we hadn’t done before," Ryleigh said. "We were choosing to spend time together. We’d go on runs. Take [our dog] Oreo on walks. Go on adventures.”
On March 20, the Selby sisters joined their classmates graduating from Monarch High School. The girls even delivered a joint speech at the commencement ceremony.
This fall, Amanda and McKenna plan to attend Colorado State University. Amanda wants to study Media and Communications, while McKenna is still deciding. Sydney is going east to the University of Massachusetts Lowell, to study Criminology and join the Air Force ROTC program. Ryleigh is headed south to the University of Arizona Tucson. She plans to study Elementary Education and Spanish.
Their time left together is short. Ryleigh will be gone most of the next few weeks working at a summer camp. She expects school breaks will serve as the sisters' big reunions.
“We’ll always come back together. I think the breaks, the big winter break when we all come back together, will be even more special. And I’m counting on us to go visit each other,” she said.
No matter where they go, the girls know they’ll always have their sisters – and the community that supported their family through those early and difficult years.
“When they say it takes a village, like, oh my gosh,” McKenna said. “All of Superior, all of Louisville, every teacher, family friend, church friends. When our parents walked in and just hand people babies!”
“We were raised by Superior, and we were raised by Louisville," she said. "That community was a huge part of our lives. That was really significant. I don’t think we could have done it without everyone else.”
RELATED: Coach who raised money for Marshall Fire victims wins Bolder Boulder women's citizen's race
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Latest from 9NEWS