Our First Family Ski Trip

Although Brian, Josh and I have all skied, we have never skied together. It is something we have always wanted to do, we just haven't taken the opportunity. While we live in Europe, it seems silly not to, so we scheduled a ski trip with a local ski club that started the day after Christmas. The nice thing about the trip is that ski lessons were included for everyone. Brian is a good skier and wasn't sure he needed the lessons, but in the end decided he learned a lot and was glad he did them. Since I hadn't skied since my senior year of high school (just a couple years ago, right?!) I was happy to be doing lessons. Josh went skiing a few times on youth trips and would have a day lesson but he really enjoyed not only having the lessons but having a full week to ski! Ian and Ellie were in classes, too. Ian picked it right up - must be all that ice skating! Ellie learned to snow plow and even went down the mountain with us one day! She was worn out at the end of each day, though, and usually fell asleep in the car on the way back to our hotel (a mere 10 minutes away). We had a great week and really enjoyed our time. Since we were all in separate ski classes, we did take the last day of skiing to have us all (minus Ellie) ski together in my ski class because we decided it was a happy medium for all of us and my instructor, Paul, was a nice guy and let us do it. We had met another family at our hotel and the wife (Gretchen) was in my class, the husband (Jerry) was in Brian's class and their boys were in Ian's class and they, too, skied as a family in my class the last day. It was a great way to wrap up the week on our Family ski trip (otherwise we were apart most of the day). Here is a picture of Brian and I on our first morning on the slopes - right before we got put into our classes! This is a picture of me while on lunch break with my class. The views were amazing! This is a picture of the view from our room at the hotel (Gasthaus) we were staying in. Enjoying the sunset from our room. The first two days of skiing were beautiful! We were running a little late for our classes the second day due to traffic getting up the mountain and Brian and I were unable to find our classes. We decided just to enjoy some time skiing together and see if we could find our classes at lunch time.





We were able to get a picture together at lunch right before we left to join our separate classes.


Here's a picture of Brian and Ellie as they were coming down one of the sloepw together. I love Ellie's expression. This picture is of the kids watching a Tim Hawkins video on Ian's iTouch he got for Christmas. I love seeing my kids having fun together! This is a picture of a well-known restaurant on the mountain that serves donuts - either savory or sweet. They were delicious!


Here's a picture of the family waiting for our donuts to arrive! Here's a picture of me with the donuts Brian and I were sharing! Josh with his donuts. Ian with his. Here's a family picture of us on the slopes. It was cold - hence the reason I look like a pink stay puff marshmallow man! I took this picture of Josh outside the place we had our award ceremony for our ski classes. Ellie got a silver medal for her class. She did have other kids in the class they just weren't at the ceremony).


Ian got the gold medal for his class. For some reason the boy standing on the podium with him thought he'd gotten the gold, too, and wouldn't get down.


Yes, I actually got the gold in my class too - beating even the young ones that got silver and bronze!


New Year's Eve the village we were staying in had a little fire works display and celebration in the town center. We stayed for the fire works then left because it was dinner time and it was snowing a wet snow that was soaking us!


Here we are on New Year's Eve with the family I mentioned earlier. Our tables were right next to each other and we chatted every night. It was fun having another family to hang out with!





The kids would hang out in the stair well near the dining room with the iPad and play games because it had a better Internet connection there!


It really was a great trip and was hard to come home to see the whirlwind of Christmas still in the living room since Christmas seemed so long ago at that point! We are already thinking about and planning for another ski trip we enjoyed it so much. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sankt Veit, Austria

December 2011

Yes, another holiday season has come and gone and I am only now blogging about it. I guess the upside to that is the fact that I took the time to just enJOY the holidays! It's all becoming a bit of a blur which is why I figure I should probably take the time to write about it before it is all forgotten! We spent Thanksgiving in Poland at a Christian mission there. Our purpose was bringing Thanksgiving dinner to the workers and their families. Our time there was tainted, however, with Ellie getting sick and us having to head home earlier than expected. We ended up spending the night in Dresden and were able to enjoy some of the Christmas markets there. The city is amazing and we look forward to going there again! Unfortunately, the month started on a sour note with Brian getting in an accident in his car and we eventually found out that our insurance company would total it. This disappointed Brian greatly as he really liked that car. As I type we still have yet to replace the car. We had a couple of work related Christmas parties to attend the first couple of weekends in December. It was our first time to have a babysitter here in Germany. I was given the name of a German girl in our village so we hired her. She is very sweet and it worked out nicely. Early in the month we made Christmas cookies to give to our neighbors. The kids and I had a good time making them and Daddy helped to ice them! Bella got whatever fell or dropped on the ground!











Ian also had his first hockey game here the second weekend of the month in Luxembourg. It was on Saturday morning and we had to get up pretty early to get there but we made it. Their rink is outside under a cover so it was pretty chilly. It was a good game and ended in a tie.





After the game, we explored the surrounding village a little then went to a Christmas market in another village on the German border (but still in Luxembourg). While at the market, Ellie rode a donkey through the town and I walked alongside with her and took pictures. She really enjoyed riding the donkey and wanted to do it again.








We finally went and picked out a tree and got it decorated. It seemed a little late for us but the timing just worked out that way for us!


On the 16th of December, Brian and Ian went on a bus with his hockey team to Mannheim to watch a German professional hockey game. They enjoyed the experience and Brian was glad to have along a couple of other American dads to chat with - one of them, in fact, graduated with him from the Academy! Small world! The next day we left in the morning to pick up Josh from the airport in Frankfurt. We got there in plenty of time and ended up waiting quite a while for him to come through customs and everything. It was so good to see him! We had already decided to go to the Christmas market in Frankfurt so we headed that way for Josh's first German experience! Unfortunately, Josh was fighting a pretty bad headache so we didn't stay very long at the market but we did stay long enough to enjoy some Gluhwein and German specialties like kartoffelpuffer (a potato pancake thing similar to hash browns and it's just fun to say) and schwenk steak (a seasoned pork steak that is quite yummy). We headed home for a little bit then went to a restaurant in a town near ours and had a nice traditional German meal. The next day we had church and then came home to enjoy a relaxing afternoon. I decided to go ahead and give the boys a gift my friend, Deb, bought on clearance thinking of my boys and sent to me - the big Harry Potter Lego castle! It took them just a couple of days but they got it done. (I need to get a picture of the finished product.)


That week before Christmas, Brian was working and Ian still had his evening activities so we had a pretty normal week. The kids did make a gingerbread house one day and we did take Josh around a little to see the local area. We did get some snow one day that week and it was enough to play in and make a snowman in but it was gone by the next day.











One night after Ian's hockey practice, we took the opportunity to do some ice skating as a family!








Brian ended up having the 23rd off so we decided to take Josh (and Ian since he wasn't with us when we went before) to Heidelberg. We walked around, shopped, ate and just enjoyed the day.


Christmas Eve we went to the service at our church then went to our friend's Tim and Jennifer's house for refreshments. We have been friends with Tim and Jennifer for a while (since 5 assignments ago) so it was fun to hang out with them and for them to get to see Josh. We came home and opened our traditional Christmas Eve gift - new pajamas! Then, sent the kids off to bed!


The above picture was taken at Tim and Jennifer's house.





Christmas morning the kids actually slept in a little bit! We then had a wonderful time of opening gifts and being together.


We got to relax for a little while but then we had to get serious packing for our ski trip that we were leaving for the next morning! I will write about the ski trip in the next post so that this isn't any longer than it already is! All-in-all we really enjoyed our time celebrating our risen Savior and His coming to earth as a baby. May we never take for granted the gift He gave us!





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad