Picture day and lost tooth

Catherine lost her first tooth today. Her two bottom permanent teeth have already come in. The bottom two have been loose for quite a while, but she won't wiggle them. The dentist gave her 4 weeks from her last appointment to loose them on her own or he would pull them. It has been almost four weeks, so her mean dad told her to eat an apple with her front teeth. Alright, Paul wasn't really mean. He was just doing what the dentist told us to do. At her last appointment the dentist told us to give her lots of apples and carrots. He said eventually she would take a bite and the tooth would get stuck in it. Catherine has always been quite a problem solver, so instead of biting with her front teeth, she figured out how to use her side teeth to eat apples and carrots. Today she was fussing about it being difficult to eat her large apple. She was asking us to cut it up. Paul talked her through biting it with her front teeth. Not too surprising the first bite bent one of the teeth. She panicked the tooth was bleeding, but not out yet. Paul helped her pull it. I am glad he can handle that stuff. I was struggling to stay in the same room with them. After the tooth came out she was so proud. She brought the bloody disgusting thing over to show me. I think we have a new rule in our house, all teeth stay far away from mommy. Tonight I learned that in our house the tooth fairy is a boy. I couldn't even help her put the tooth out for the tooth fairy, Daddy had to do that too.

Before all the tooth drama, we had picture day at our house. If you want to see all the pictures you can go to our shutterfly website. http://paulandnaomi.shutterfly.com/ I have also uploaded a few here.

Alaska again

Today we are in Seward. We arrived here on Wednesday evening and had a great trip here. The Bishop came with us and many of us took turns riding in the van with him. He brought his daughter and wife with him to Alaska. The Bishop, his wife and daughter seem to fit in with our group well. We have enjoyed our time together and learned a lot about each other.

On the way here we saw more glaciers. They are all quite beautiful, and I can't seem to get enough pictures of the glaciers. I am fascinated by them, and their ice fields. I hope some day I will get an opportunity to hike or fly to an ice field. I would love to be able to fly low over the ice fields and see the glaciers up close.

The highlight of today was a boat trip in Resurrection Bay. We saw a lot of wild life. There were sea lions, puffins, whales, bald eagles, and mountain goats. Of course we also saw more glaciers. We also saw a very lonely WWII outpost on the top of a small rocky island. The island was made of sheer cliffs and we were amazed at the amount of effort it took to get the concrete to the top to build a bunker. Just climbing up to the bunker would have been a challenge.

One of the disappointments of today was discovering that I left my camera charger in Anchorage. I don't have pictures of these amazing sights. However, our group photographer, Bruce has been quite busy and has posted pictures on the other blog. They are incredible, please take a look at 3yearalaskatrip.blogspot.com.

Catherine and Elizabeth I wish you were here. It is beautiful and I hope to share this with you some day. I miss you two very much and love you lots and lots. I send hugs and kisses to you every morning and night. I will be home soon and we can look at all the pictures together. In the meantime I hope you are enjoying the pictures and stories.