Ski Holiday

Thursday, February 11 we headed to Bex/Villars for three days of skiing with our good friends the Ultes. We rented four rooms at the B&B Heidi's Guesthouse (www.guesthouse.ch). The kids were super excited to be spending that much time with their friends and on the slopes.

The first bit of preparation involved renting skis for Didi and me. We brought along Sam, Ben, and Alena...so three kids running around always adds a bit of excitement to the task. I was glad Didi was along because he speaks French and I may have struggled a bit, although I suspected that the guy helping us understood English because he chuckled at a couple of things I said to Didi. Neither Didi nor I have skied since high school, so we'll be taking a lesson and see what happens. Sooze grew up in Colorado and worked as a ski instructor for people with special needs so she has offered to help me.....hmmmmmmm, what is she saying?!?!

The B&B turned out to be a great fit for us. We took over the 2nd floor bedrooms and were able to use the kitchen and a common room for our breakfasts and evening meals. There were also two resident guinea pigs that the kids loved. After our first day of skiing Suzie and Didi prepared a great raclette dinner for us. This is very Swiss. It consists of a table-top grill where you can cook meets and vegetables on the top and melt cheese on the bottom to pour over boiled potatoes. The second night Dan and I prepared a pasta dinner. Everyone was always hungry after a day outdoors!

On Thursday we took the train up to the slopes at Villars where Zoe, Pia, Sam, Didi, and I had a group lesson and Alena had an individual lesson. It was quite obvious early into our lesson that I was the weakest link! Pia has been skiing a year longer than our kids so she is quite comfortable on skis and Didi has snowboarded so he wasn't having any problems either! It was a two hour lesson and by the end we were all doing pretty good. The second day Didi didn't take the lesson and I felt the teacher really pushed us. Pia was fine and Sam and Zoe were doing ok. Zoe is very cautious on skis and Sam isn't as cautious, but he was really tired the second day and was falling and crying a lot. I was feeling very challenged physically and also concerned for the safety of my kids! It was a bit stressful, but we did have a good time and continued to improve. I took a couple pretty hard falls and am still feeling it days later!

On Saturday we stayed on the free kids' hill and Didi and Pia went back up to the big slopes for the day. Sam, Zoe, and Alena skied non-stop all day! They really had a good time! Ben made a friend for awhile....a girl that he followed around for about 30 minutes. He would follow her up on the "moving carpet" and then run behind her down the hill. It was pretty cute! Dan also got him to fall asleep in the sled and we covered him up with jackets and he slept for over and hour!

We topped the day off with yummy crepes in town. It was a wonderful trip shared with good friends. Dan was so nice to let me ski while he watched Ben. We'll be ready to take the kids to "Little Switzerland" and the Porcupine Mountains in the U.P. when we move back!