It's always fun until...

... someone breaks a tooth and the dog poops on the ice. (Though not in that order.)

This year's Thanksgiving celebration will be remembered not so much for the turkey as for the events that distracted us from it. It started with a simple text from my brother "Tell AJ to throw his skates in the car. I bet Diamond Lake will be plenty thick with no snow."

What a fantastic idea! Growing up, I can only remember one Thanksgiving when we were able to skate. I mentioned it to AJ and he pointed out he'd never skated on a lake before. And so we set out. It was like a scene created by Norman Rockwell.

Smiling kids in bright colored jackets, making the most of this winter day. Out on the ice, there were plenty of bumps near shore, but the kids easily skated around them.

And farther out, the ice was fairly smooth. Even the dog joined in the fun.

And amazingly, Gus behaved himself. He stayed near us and didn't try to steal anyone's gloves.

Everything was perfect until...

Oh, yes. He did. A steaming, stinky pile right there on the ice. 

But even that wasn't enough to take away from our perfect day. We managed to get a family photo that will work for Christmas cards this year. (So if you're on our list, act surprised when you see this picture.)

Eventually, I got cold and headed into the house with my camera. I uploaded photos from our idyllic morning onto Facebook, but before I could even finish posting them, our idyllic morning reached an abrupt end. AJ came into the house crying. AJ very rarely cries, so I knew it was something, but at first couldn't figure out what was wrong. There was no blood. His glasses weren't broken. Then he lifted up his slightly swollen lip. 

He'd been skating backwards when he hit an ice ridge and tripped, face planting himself on the ice and cracking off his front tooth. 

Just try and find a dentist on the Friday after Thanksgiving when you're 100+ miles from home. Even with the wonderful help and recommendations of my orthodontist sister-in-law, we couldn't find a dentist that was open who could squeeze him in. Finally I called our dentist, which was also closed, but through them I was able to make arrangements for a dentist to meet us Friday night to seal and protect what was left of his tooth.

Once AJ learned that this wouldn't interfere with his weekend hockey tournament, plus would likely mean he'd get out of at last part of a day of school on Monday, he calmed down remarkably. Ibuprofen was enough to ease any pain.

Three days later, he again has a "tooth". It's a temporary solution - a filling that that will likely crack off any time he bites wrong anytime during the next eight or nine years. But that's how long we need to wait for his teeth and mouth to stop growing so we can have a permanent crown put on his tooth.

AJ wasn't a fan of the Novacaine or drilling process. But he sure enjoyed going back to class afterward. Everyone wanted to check out his new tooth and AJ was more than happy to show it off. I'm just wondering how often we'll be repeating this process, and how expensive of a face plant this is going to turn out to be.