Last Thursday, all five of us skied together up in Vail - it was a first. Griffin and Rowan have both been in lessons at Eldora, so they were both up to speed for the green and blue runs we ended up on in Vail. In fact, Griffin had to be chased by Pam as we descended back to the base. Rowan made wonderful s-turns, following me down the mountain. Berit might have been bored, had she not been practicing skiing backwards.

The snow was epic up there. Berit built a snow fort in front of Grammy and Papa's house, and I followed up by digging a cave that attached to her fort. Grammy and Papa arrived Thursday evening, as did Kip. On Friday, Grammy hung out with the kids - coloring easter eggs, making cookies, and watching Mary Poppins - while Pam, Kip, Al, and I skied Vail together.




At the house we played games - Quiddler and Uno. Rowan also read Harry Potter 4 a lot of the time. Cookie the Mouse was there too. Before we left on Saturday, Grammy gave the kids chinese-takeout-style Easter baskets.

We can hardly extract Rowan's head from the Harry Potter books now. In the past few weeks she's devoured the first two and is halfway through the third one. She walks around with her face buried in it, omitting the occasional giggle or apprising us sometimes of what's happening in the boy wizard's saga.

What can I say except that there’s hardly anything I’d rather do than spend three days in Disney World with my son and my father. February was a perfect time to be there – hardly any lines, and the weather was beautiful.



Griffin had some idea about what he was going to, but I don’t think the sheer magnificence of the experience dawned on him until we arrived. It’s been a few days since our return now, and last night he told me that his favorite was “the log ride” (Splash Mountain). I know that he also loved Philharmagic and Kali River Rapids, both of which we did twice. He loved Mission: Space too, though he has also told me that it was a little scary.



The day after our return home, Griffin wore his mouse ears (Pirate-style, with “Griffin” artistically sewn into the back) and took his pearl to school for show-and-tell. The pearl experience was definitely a highlight – Griffin was utterly captivated that night in “Japan,” watching as oysters were selected and pried open to reveal their precious cargo, and then each pearl was measured, weighed, and delivered to the joyous recipient with a Japanese Taiko drumming accompaniment.



Other highlights included the jungle safari, during which I convinced Griffin to let me man the camera, while he merely checked on me now and again to make sure that I was indeed capturing all this, and Cici’s Pizza, where Griffin got to eat whatever he wanted, including four deserts and soda. My man was exhausted at the end of each day, as were Dad and I, though we didn’t let that stop us from making use of the pool.

We can hardly wait for Christmas 2009.