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After the longest month of at least one person in our house being sick that I can remember ever.... we made it to February.  Since MiniM.E. was born I cannot remember a week (let alone a month) where we stayed inside or I took as few photos as I did last month.

But we made it through, and I'm happy to say that the first weekend of February showed lots of promise!

Saturday we went out for Saratoga's Chowderfest.  We'd been since we moved to Saratoga-- the first year was a bit of a shock-- Bob had to work and I took 2 1/2 month old MiniM.E. by myself to a festival full of people and lines for tiny cups of chowder... not so impressed.  Last year, MiniM.E. had no desire to sit in a stroller and wait in lines, though we got there super early to make sure to taste some of the best... we still ended up spending most of Chowderfest at a coffee shop.

So I didn't have high expectations for this year.

And we had a blast!

We took the bus into town (which was probably the best part for MiniM.E.)

She brought Dolly in her carrier and walked the streets: We made footprints in the snow (also a highlight): Managed to taste the two best chowders in town and swing by Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream chowder for MiniM.E. before she needed a break to walk the park and throw rocks in the stream: We hit up a few more chowder spots... spent half an hour at Northshire Books and three times that long putting the dollies to bed at G. Willikers before ending our day at Druther's where MiniM.E. insisted we push through the hundreds of people in the courtyard and wait in a 30 minute queue for a table...

All in all, Chowderfest was a blast the third time around.

Sunday we finally had weather good enough (if you call mid 30's with drizzle good weather) to try skiing with MiniM.E. on the new skis we bought her.  She has been talking about it since the first snow fell and she was SO excited.

West Mountain seemed like a good first time skiing choice.  With the magic carpet and the easy sloping bunny hill, we made a good choice. (forgot you can't take sideways videos...) Video of skiing to come... technical issues with the video camera...

The magic carpet was obviously much more fun than actually going down the hill on skis, but we made a total of four runs, which was four more than I thought we would make.

After a snack by the fire (and another in the lodge), MiniM.E. said she was done for the day and we packed up to go home.  (She said she wanted to ski again as we were walking to the car... next time...) I think it was a successful first ski day! Posted by Kris Dunham at 08:44