Dad let Nathan tag along to the scout Klondike camp out with him. He's had a loose tooth that is really close to coming out. Brother Hilbun (a member of our Bishopric) saw his fiddling with his tooth and told him that if Nathan let him pull the tooth out he would give him $3. Nathan kind of shrugged it off and continued to work on it himself. Bro. Hilbun saw him later and repeated the offer. He told him he was an expert at pulling out teeth (and pulled out his pliers). Nathan still couldn't let him do it. At this point everyone was packing up to head out, so Dad and Ben started walking towards the car, and Dad noticed that Nathan was kind of pouting and hanging back. Dad asked what the deal was, and Nathan said he wanted Bro. Hilbun to pull out his tooth. So Dad told him to run back and let him do it. He did. He ran back, Bro. Hilbun pulled out the pliers and with one yank that tooth was out. He told Nathan to find him at church the next day for his money. Of course, as soon as we got to church Sunday morning Nathan ran up to Bro. Hilbun and collected his $3. And now he had one fewer teeth in his smile.
The only person in our family who has ever gone snowboarding or skiing is Dad, so we decided it was high time we take some of the others to learn how. We decided on Pajarito Resort outside of Los Alamos - we could get a 2 hour lesson with a ski lift for just a little more than the cheapest lift ticket other places (and we thought some instruction from professionals would help us out). Dad watched the littlest three in the car and in the lodge while we did our lesson: Ben, Nathan and I skiied and Caelan and Megan snowboarded. Since most of the people in the lessons were kids, they put me with someone separate (pretty much a one-on-one lesson). After the two hours we practiced a little on the bunny hill and then met in the lodge for some lunch. At this point I was going to switch with Sean and he was going to board the mountain and I was going to watch the kiddos. He told me to just go ahead and keep skiing - I'd get the hang of it better if I could keep practicing for the day. As were eating and talking in the lodge Nathan said he was ready to go up the lift (none of us had gone up yet). I told him maybe he should practice a little more or go up with someone else. We all went back out and continued our bunny slope practice. I decided I was about ready to go up the lift and convinced Ben to go with me. As we were riding the lift up I looked down and noticed Nathan skiing down the hill - he had gone up the lift himself and was making his way down the mountain. He didn't even look nervous. As the day went on Ben and I got a little more comfortable going down and Nathan would just zoom right by us. He absolutely loved it. The girls spent a lot of time on their rear ends - I hear that's the way it is the first day of snowboarding. With about an hour left Megan decided she wanted to switch and try skiing. It only took about 15 minutes before she wanted to switch back, but I told her to just power through for the next half hour. It was a great day!
