No degrees.

Day off today. It's cold.

We're going to take the kids to the Ben & Jerry's factory (every kid should go there once), and to see the Icelandic ponies at The Mad River Inn.

Yesterday was a wicked hard day, parenting-wise. My oldest got into a teenage-level funk and was challenging everything we said... from not being allowed to jump off the roof of the neighbor's house (!) to who gets to ski with who, to where to eat to whether we could stop for a brochure for this ski lodge to pretty much anything else we suggested... and he always remained about 20 yards back. Stopping and plopping into the snow until we called him over. The direct disagreements would be followed by long, long, moping periods. He snapped out of it eventually, but it's really hard for me to deal with.

On the other hand, my oldest has turned into an AMAZING skier. Totally fearless. I can't keep up with him at all. He skies into the woods at every opportunity, takes whatever jumps he can find, and basically radiates joy at every turn. It's kind of incredible to watch.

My daughter blew me away at the end of the day. As I watched, she skied down to the chairlift line, got on the lift alone, went to the top of the bunny hill, and skied back to me... all on her own. She looked terrific! I can't believe how much she's improved in the last few days.

My youngest has been hard at work in Ski School, and is really coming along. He's also quite taken with the teenage ski instructors.

To Maggie, there's almost nothing better than where we're it right now. The only thing that could make it better for her would be if we were staying in our own place. I'm not sure that's going to happen this year, but maybe someday. When Maggie skis, she has this terrific smile on her face... she definitely the family snow bunny.

So now, it's off to do dishes and head into town. My back is already thanking me for the day off.

Love to all. Even you, whoever parked in the middle of the one-way street.