My Boys and their Boards

Last night we came home from Eagar. We were there for the weekend with the main objective of snowboarding. We left Friday afternoon with 15 of the youth from our ward and some of their leaders so that Preston could take them to Sunrise on Saturday for snowboarding or skiing. We had a lot of fun with the youth. Preston's parents hosted dinner at their house Friday night then we went to the intermediate school where we played dodge ball/soccer and scooter races. A little side not PReston and I were on different teams for dodgeball and I got him out twice and he got me out Zero times. Yeah for me. Anyways after playing in the gym we went to a classroom and Preston gave a little devotional. Then we split up the young men and their leaders went to sleep at Preston's parents house and the young women spent the night at Preston's sisters house who also lives in Eagar. They had a fun day of boarding on Saturday and then the youth went home. We stayed until Monday night so that Preston could take Nathan snowboarding.
This is Nathan and Preston on the ski lift. I think Preston is happy and proud to have a son that enjoys snowboarding. Preston spent a lot of time on the slopes since he was Nathan's age. He was a skiier until shortly before his mission when he started snowboarding. He even was a ski instructor during high school to kids ages 3 to 6. Nathan went for the first time last season and loved it. He got a snowboard for Christmas and has been anxious to try it out.

This is Nathan heading down the mountain. His blonde hair reminds me of when I first started dating Preston, it was during snowboarding season so Preston died his hair blonde so it would look cooler on the slopes.

Nathan after one of his falls but he is still smiling. He loves it. Preston says that Nathan never complains of being tired. He is just happy to be there boarding. I have done it a few times. (YEARS ago) and I remember being so sore and tired of falling and pushing myself back up.

This is Preston jumping on Saturday. (One of the other leaders took the picture) The shadow looks pretty cool. I don't have an after picture on this but he crashed hard after this jump. He went farther than he anticipated and landed HARD on a flat spot of the mountain. He has a big scrape on his chin, hurt his hip and tailbone, pulled a groin muscle (sorry if too much info). He also informed that he hit the back of his head on a couple of lands and thinks he blacked out once. So not what a wife wants to hear the father of her 3 children say. Preston is starting to feel his age and that he is getting out of shape and it is severely disheartening to him. I think he will be living vicariously through Nathan in the years to come.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Last week I bought Taylor her own ballet slippers. She is starting a princess dance class and a gymnastics class later this month. I bought the slippers pretty early to make sure I could find some for her. Soon after we got home from buying the slippers she wanted to put them on along with the whole outfit. (all hand me downs I might add, SCORE for us) It was cute she would twirl around and do various dance moves. She sure didn't like the fact that she has to wait 3 more weeks until her first dance class.

Taylor's First Talk

Taylor is in Sunbeams this year. (Technically she should still be in nursery because her birthday is Jan 12th but the nursery leader and Primary Presidency came to us and asked if we would like to put her in Sunbeams. She was ready to go and really bored in nursery so we said sure. She is doing a great job in there.) Anyways back to the story. Taylor gave a talk in Primary yesterday and she did a fantastic job. She was very excited and she didn't have an ounce of stage fright. I got a little emotional seeing her in the front of the primary room singing the opening song (well trying to) while her little legs dangled from the chair. She is growing up and we were proud of how well she did. A side note, Taylor is a complete HAM. She will give me a cute pose and smile until she sees the light on the camera for the flash and she quickly makes a silly face or pose. Nathan taught her that and it drives me CRAZY! This picture is one exhibit of that.

How we finished February

Our Saturday last week was busy and chaotic and I was exhausted after it was all said and done. It started at 7 am when Preston left to Little Philmont Scout training. At noon I had a Stake RS Conference and since Preston was at Philmont I had to drop my kids off at a sitters. I dropped them off then headed to the church. Preston picked up the kids during his lunch break and I met them at home after the lunch and program for the RS Conference. We then drove separate cars to Nathan's last basketball game of the season that started at 2:00. That is Nathan in the middle with the white jersey on getting ready to pass the maroon and gold ball to #33.

When the game was over we went outside for snacks (which it was our turn to provide) This is Nathan and his team listening to coach while eating snacks.

Then I headed back to the church to try and catch the last class of the conference and Preston headed home with the kids. Then Nathan had his end of the season Pizza Party at 4 and my conference was over at 4. So Preston took the kids to Peter Piper and I met them out there when my conferences was done. As soon as I got there we swapped keys and Preston headed back to his Philmont Training. This is Nathan getting his trophy (unfortunately the only picture I got of this occuring the coaches arm was in front of Nathan's face.We left the pizza party about 5:45 and rushed home. Preston met us there when it was the dinner break at Philmont. We all changed our clothes, I fed Natalie and we picked up Nathan's friend Hayden at 6:30 to go to the Phoenix Road Runners hockey game. Nathan's coach is one of the Team Doctors for the Roadrunners and provided tickets for whoever on the team wanted to go. Two side notes - Nathan lost his top tooth during this 30 minutes at home and Preston was supposed to go back to Philmont but decided to go with me to the game so that I didn't have to have all the kids by myself at the game. (Plus I think he really wanted to go to the game). This is Nathan and his Friend Hayden.
This is a picture of Nathan Hayden and 2 other boys from his team Ethan and Jake. Jake is the one in the black shirt, he is the coaches son. It was a lot of fun for the boys. The coach got them an official hockey puck and his wife bought all of them Cold Stone Ice-Cream. After leaving the game I realized we didn't get any pictures of the rest of us at the game but in reality it was really all for Nathan we were just along for the ride.

Another side note. When I was a young girl my friend Dixie's family had season tickets to the roadrunners when they were at a different arena. The tickets were right by the penalty box and I remember we would say things to the players in the box and they would sometimes squirt there water bottles at us. We would also try to kick the glass as they would skate by. It was fun memories. I also won a broken stick of Wayne Gretsky's at one of the games. I gave it to Dixie, I wonder if she still has it. I told Nathan about my fun memories and I hope he will remember these experiences that he is fortunate to have when he gets older.

Like I say it was a busy day but we had fun and hopefully made some memories.