We arrived in Åre at 7 in the morning. After a breakfast at the train station, our first priority was changing clothes. We travelled in clothes suitable for Stockholm where the temperature was an unseasonally warm +5°C. Here in Åre we were met by winter, closer to what Swedish winter is supposed to be: the temperature is below freezing, it is snowing, and the wind has a real bite.

Shuttle buses took us to the Björnen area where we picked up our equipment and left our luggage. Then we were ready for the slopes.

The wind remained strong and unpleasant most of the day and the skies were gray and heavy. The lifts to the upper slopes were closed and we probably wouldn’t have wanted to be up there anyway. So we stayed in the lower slopes around Björnen.

By lunchtime the kids were already tired. The skiing was nicer in the afternoon and we got some beautiful moments of sunshine. But after last night’s short sleep we felt quite done by around 15.

Ingrid suddenly went on a smoothie making spree, with smoothies for both breakfast and an afternoon snack. Adrian realized that he can also make smoothies on his own and doesn’t have to wait for me to make one. Here they both are with a smoothie breakfast.

Adrian is reading Kalle Anka as usual. He never tires of them.

Ingrid is reading her notes for her upcoming physics test. She totally does tire of them. (Forces, levers, action and reaction, acceleration and all that.)

I’m helping Ingrid with her physics homework, while she coughs all the time.

Their current area of study is mechanics, which has a lot of counter-intuitive topics. I’ve really struggled to explain some of these to Ingrid in a way that makes sense for her.

Why do satellites at different altitudes move at different speeds?

When a hammer thrower releases the handle, in which direction does the hammer fly, and why?

You have two jars containing wasps. In one the wasps are dead, in another they are alive and flying around in the jar. How do the weights of the jars differ?

We played Catan. It was fun for about an hour and a half but the game dragged on and the fun started disappearing. In the end Ingrid traded some rocks to Eric to let him win.

Most of my opportunities to take photos of Ingrid come when she’s cooking. Partly because she does a lot of cooking here nowadays. And partly because that’s one of the things she can’t do in her own room.

Today was a beautiful day with sunlight and bright blue skies, so I wanted out. Eric is away on a business trip but Ingrid and Adrian came with me when I said I was going.

We drove to Hellasgården and walked along some of the trails there. The morning was chilly but by lunchtime I was sweating underneath all my layers.

Plenty of other people had had the same idea: as time passed, the paths got more and more crowded. I added some detours to our planned path to get away from the main routes, because it was getting to the point where I felt like I was on a city street, with people and prams and dogs everywhere. I’m glad we went out early(ish) and I’m glad I didn’t listen to the kids’ mild grumbling when I suggested the detours.

Ingrid has been suffering from a bad cold for at least a week already. Nose totally blocked, ears blocked, tired, no appetite… The only thing she has found that she wants to eat is home made “ice cream” – frozen yogurt, frozen juice and frozen smoothie. We have a set of molds for making ice pops so Ingrid has been making them for herself, on demand. This one is from a smoothie I made yesterday, with bananas, kiwis and apple juice.

I was going to take a photo of how miserable she was feeling, but the photography session and the effort to pretend that the camera wasn’t there actually cheered her up.

Ingrid, being a teenager, spends more and more of her waking time in her own room, doing her own stuff. I see less of her than I used to.

She does come down when she has a particularly large chunk of particularly boring homework to cram. She enjoys subjects where learning means understanding and reasoning, such as math and science. Even some parts of social studies, such as when they worked with ethics. But subjects such as history and geography on grade school level mostly means cramming facts. Names, years, terms…

The best way for Ingrid to learn those is to tell them to someone else, out loud. Today we did “home skills”. She has a test coming up soon, on the topic of food ingredients: meats, grains, dairy, vegetables etc. So she went through all her notes and told me all the facts. What inner temperature should pork be cooked to? What is margarine? What are pulses? What is the difference between hard cheese and cream cheese? Mostly sort of useful facts, but learning them by heart for a test is maybe not the best way…

There has barely been any winter weather this year. It’s all just been gray since early November. We’re so far from having a white Christmas that there hasn’t even been talk of a chance of one.

But today was at least a brighter day, with even some weak sunshine, so we went out skating.

Adrian took the skates that Ingrid used last year (size 36) and Ingrid took mine (size 38) and I stayed on the sidelines and took photos. And walked in circles around the skating rink when I felt done with that.

Usually the large bandy rink at Spånga sports field is fully booked for various organized activities and the general public has to make do with the small field. This December though there was a leak in the refrigeration unit so all scheduled activities were cancelled or moved to other ice rinks. The leak was recently fixed but the schedule remained clear, and according to the web site the place was still closed, so we had the luxury of a large and nearly empty ice rink.

The Christmas thing is in full swing.

Cookies were made, gifts were opened, plenty of food was eaten.

For the past few Christmases, I’ve had to make more and more of an effort to enjoy this circus at least somewhat. I used to be able to. Now it’s just a chore.