My 15 year old niece is visiting this week and her mission is to get me away from the computer. She's doing a great job. Yesterday we went (this is not something I'm very good at) shopping in downtown Burlington. It's really fun going to Victoria's Secret with a teenage girl. Hee hee. Today we are going to snowshoe up to a lean-to on the Bean Trail near my house. The Bean Trail is a side trail that leads up to the Long Trail. It's about 15 degrees out, so hiking uphill will keep us nice and toasty. Snowshoing? Yes. The snow has finally arrived....well a little bit at least. We have about 8 -10 inches of nice new snow but of course it's basically on top of grass and rocks since we lost all of our base. At least it looks pretty, though.

My mission while she is here is to expose her to different foods. Yesterday we went to a health food store so she could see that there are in fact more vegetables than broccoli and carrots. She has now had (and liked!!!) kale and red cabbage for the first time. We'll do veggie sushi. But she has definitely declined on the seaweed - something to do with seeing it on the beach too often. We'll see how far I get in a week. Heh. Tomorrow I think we will go to Montreal, though we'll have to pass on the city's famous smoked meat since she doesn't eat red meat.