Winter in the mountains

Right before Christmas we found a deal on a mountain apartment for rent for the season. EVERYONE in Switzerland skis and Geneva is literally empty on the weekends in winter because everyone is in the mountains. We decided to be like the Swiss and jumped on the deal. Our apartment is a little 500 sq ft place that is at the back of a chalet owned by an American woman. It is in a tiny village called Vers L'Eglise which literally means 'toward the church' which, even in French is a little bit of a strange name for a town. It is about 3 km from a larger town, Les Diablerets, which is where the ski resort is based out of. The nice thing about our little village is that it has its own ski lift, train station, auberge (bed & breakfast) with an awesome restaurant, and a beautiful old church (hence the name) that hosts classical music concerts each Saturday night. The only thing we really don't have is a grocery store, other than that, everything is really convenient.

Skiing

Me

Although I have tried downhill skiing a couple times, I never really learned how and both attempts were quite frustrating and scary. I decided that this time I would take lessons and really try to learn and enjoy it. After all, I consider myself to be a moderately athletic person and if all these Swiss people could do it, so could I, right? I rented my stuff and took a lesson. The lesson actually went surprisingly well. If I hadn't landed on my pole during a particularly large wipeout, I would have come out relatively unscathed. As it was, I ended up with a huge (seriously, I mean HUGE) bruise down my thigh. I went back a couple times on my own to practice. In the end, I was still nervous, frustrated, and not enjoying myself. In addition, I was always alone because Chris and I were taking turns watching the kids. I decided that if I was going to spend my time alone, I wanted to do something I enjoyed. I traded in my downhill skis for cross-country skis and for the rest of the winter I skied about 10-20 kms every weekend. Added benefit, cross country skiing through the Swiss Alps all winter long gets you in great shape for a spring trip to Jamaica.

Chris

Chris learned to ski when he was young. He hadn't done it for a long time so he took a lesson as well. After that, he kept practicing and has been enjoying the skiing very much.

Miles

People keep asking us if we are getting Miles in skis. Answer - not really. Miles is very cautious and doesn't really have the personality for trying new things until he is good and ready. He still doesn't really like riding his bike. We did rent skis for him for a couple days and he enjoyed putting them on and sliding along on flat ground. I am thinking next year he and I could take a couple lessons together.

James

James did not ski but I am guessing he will next year and he is our family's best shot at producing the next Bode Miller due to his fearless attitude toward heights and speed.

I have so many great pictures from the mountains, I am going to include quite a few in this post.