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Ski Trip
Our family decided to try skiing for the February break, a time when most other families from school are also skiing. Normally we would head to the sun, but this amazing opportunity to stay in a catered chalet fell into my lap and I jumped at it. Let me be very clear, this was the right decision! The entire vacation was one of our best ever!
As the chalet had a Sunday to Sunday policy, we left Brussels on Saturday to drive to Dijon, France. We met up with the two other families at our hotel (there are 12 of us total) and proceeded to the city center to have dinner and walk around a bit. The next day we all headed to Samoens, France after making a pit stop in Geneva, Switzerland for a Starbucks run. (You do remember that we only have Starbucks at our airports and train stations in Brussels, right?) The town of Samoens is quite small and very quaint. Everything centers around the ski resorts. We bought our ski tickets (and later found out we had purchased lift passes for Nordic (cross-country) skiing instead of Alpine (incline). Mistake #1 by me, but luckily it was rectified by our lovely chalet host. The 12 of us also got all of our rental equipment and were picked up by Chris and taken to the chalet. I am including the link for their website on the right hand side so you can get a good impression of the chalet. It was beautiful!
Chris & Allie, our chalet hosts, were very welcoming and put everyone at ease right away. They sat down with the kids on the first night and came up with a menu for the week that suited everyone. The adults ate separately and after the kids which was wonderful! We had the 3 boys sleep in one room, the 3 girls sleep in another room, and then each of the couples had their own room. All bedrooms are en suite.
Our days for the week pretty much went like this:
• breakfast at the chalet (cereals, eggs to order, yogurt, fruit, smoothies)
• the kids and I had ski lessons from 9:00 - 11:30 (side bar comment, beginner skiers, which I am, in France are called debutantes, which I loved! I think I’ll be a debutante for the rest of my ski career!)
• adults (minus me and Nancy - who didn’t ski at all) skied on their own
• all adults and kids met back up and headed to lunch together (we ate at the same restaurant at the same table every day that week). Hot wine (vin chaud) would be drank to warm up
• after lunch we would ski some more; sometimes keeping together, other times breaking off by families or ability levels.
• some more vin chaud (pronounced a bit like va show) while the kids played in the snow and then back to the chalet for tea, hot chocolate, and cakes.
• relaxation, hot tub, showers, games, tv, dinner for kids, dinner for adults, kids to bed, and then the adults would retire to the tv room for games, tv, cheese, and some more wine.
One night Chris & Allie don’t cook dinner and that also happened to be Valentine’s day so we ate at a local restaurant and had a great meal. One day the guys and I had massages in the chalet and one afternoon the ladies and I went to the spa (win-win for me!) in the afternoon. I was seriously shocked with how much our kids enjoyed the skiing and loved showing off their skills to us! They are already talking about a ski trip for Christmas and in February!
