We had a beautiful weekend at Snowbird: sunny, relaxing, fun. Jake’s gotten to be an amazing skier: he took on Regulator Johnson while it was still cold and crusty without any complaint. I’m so proud of him! And Maggie enjoyed swimming and some alone time in the room 🙂

I’m reading The Glass Castle…pretty heavy stuff. Although she abdicates her role as mother, the mom has some interesting insights: while explaining to her daughter why she shouldn’t try to move the stunted and twisted tree to a more hospitable location, she says “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.” This statement parallels the mother’s philosophy about child rearing; that is, children–and people in general–should not be coddled, should not be supervised, should not be helped much at all. Everyone must make their own way. If she weren’t so dysfunctional I might believe a lot of what she says! Because I was so curious about the writer and her family, I looked her up and found this video of her and her mom.