What's better than celebrating Christmas? How about celebrating Christmas with the family and Santa on the slopes? We celebrated in New Paltz and also got ski season underway at Windham Mountain. The kids also got some great presents from Santa - specifically baseball cards and Pokemon cards. To add to the merriment, both of them won a trophy at a NYC chess tournament, which might be their last for awhile!
Bryson has been out of commission with chess for a couple years now (read: pandemic). So we were psyched to attend chess nationals in Orlando, this time with Scarlet in tow. This was her second chess tournament ever.
There were only a couple other Hunter kids there. But Scarlet's Lower Lab had a pretty good showing. We had a blast swimming, playing in the arcade, and pigging out on vegan pizzas and sundaes.
Why sundaes? Well, this was part of our plan (read: bribe) to get Scarlet to notate her games. She ended up notating each game - 7 games total over the 3 days. Plus, her games were over an hour long, her longest being an hour and twenty minutes!
Bryson ended up placing 8th with Santi as a team. We were happy that Scarlet won a couple too.
I surprised the family post tournament with snorkeling with manatees. Interestingly, they are not very fatty and need the warmth of Crystal Springs to help with their body heat.
