EXOTERIC - Information Worth Sharing: ex·o·ter·ic
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3. Of or relating to the outside; external.

I took Monday off from work because the kids had a school holiday. We went up to Snow Valley ski resort to do some skiing and snowboarding. I think the last time I went skiing here was in 1985!

The weather here in Southern California over the weekend was absolutely gorgeous. It was in the 80's on Sunday. Up at the ski resort on Monday it was in the mid-60's during the day. I wore a sweatshirt and was a bit too warm. There were lots of people skiing in T-shirts and shorts. The previous weekend's storms had dumped several feet of fresh snow, so the conditions were about as perfect as they can be in the local mountains. The snow doesn't last long when it is this warm!

We got there around 9am, got our lift tickets (I got a free lift ticket because it was my birthday), then we got stuck in the rental line for over an hour. By the time we got our equipment, it was almost 10:30. Next time, I'll do the off site rentals. Our friends had also come up with their kids to ski, so our kids ended up hanging out and skiing/snowboarding together most of the day.

Marissa, Alicia and Alex.

My daughter Alicia had never been skiing before, so this was her first time. She was very apprehensive about skiing (and falling down) and she was not happy on the slopes. I managed to get her to do three runs on the bunny slope before she called it quits. This was Marissa's third time skiing and she was doing great with her basic snowplow turns to get down the slopes. I took her down some intermediate runs and she had no problems, but she spent most of the day with her friend Allie (first time snowboarder) on the beginner runs. I think this was Alex's fifth time snowboarding and he now has his Uncle Scott's old snowboard equipment. He is really getting comfortable on the snowboard. He did manage to crash and scrape up his elbow and bruise his knee on the freestyle jumps with his friend A.J. After lunch I headed up to Slide Peak and did several Black Diamond runs. I managed to hit every open lift at least once and did a bunch of runs before we called it quits at 4pm.

Marissa and Alex going up the lift.

We hit some pretty bad traffic on the way home through the construction on the I-215 in Riverside. We stopped in Temecula for dinner and were home by 8pm. Hopefully we will be able to fit in another day of skiing before this season is over.