By: Joyce Shulman

As my friends' kids begin to morph into teenagers, I often hear tales of those newly minted teens' disinterest in all things family.  "I remember when he loved to hang out with us," my friend Alison cries.  "Now, he just wants to be with his friends and doesn't want anything to do with us."

When I hear these complaints, I often respond with my family's trump card: we are a skiing family.  Two or three times a year, we take off for a mountain adventure.  The kids go to ski school in the morning and we ski together as a family in the afternoon.  At the end of the day, we share hot chocolate and tales of the biggest jumps, the best powder and the most epic falls.

We believe that those shared experiences will keep our kids coming back.  We believe that decades from now, we will be skiing with our kids and our grandkids.