ski week

Each year the kids get one week of in February off for a week of skiing. Last year we were stoked to just be home and continued getting settled. This year we were all geared up and ready to go ski all week.

Our great friend, Andrew, who was in Patrick’s A100 class and is now posted in DC flew over for the week. We flew in our friend Anna in fromt he UK to help with the kids and to stay with Jude during the day while we all skied away. Lastly, our friends who lived in Cameroon while we were there and are now in Bern joined us.

We stayed at this perfect, amazing chalet. It was big enough for all of us and the location was unbeatable. The views every morning of the sunrise and every night of the sunset were more than perfect.

I knew we’d be out all day snowboarding and skiing so I preplanned all our meals. I made most of them ahead of time so they’d be ready for the crockpot in the morning or to be easily cooked that night. It was a ton of work but I know it saved us so much money and time while we were there.

Here is the basic menu:

Breakfast: potatoes, eggs, frozen (but amazing) croissants, and bacon

Lunch: we packed sandwiches and other snacks

Dinner: chili, fondue, pulled pork sandwiches (pork shoulder cooked in some Heinz BBQ sauce all day in the crockpot), Greek lemon chicken, and BBQ ribs Each meal included breads and some veggie sides.

We were so close to the Grand Massif, it was only about 10 min drive down the mountain. Each morning we would see how the kids were and make a decision about how long we’d go and what we’d do. I actually got pretty sick while we were there so I was totally unable to participate in most of these activities but this is how most of the time would go. Since Drake doesn’t like ski school, he and I spent most mornings hanging out at the magic carpet. Patrick and Aydan would go down the blue runs while we did that. One day, I was too sick to even take Drake on the magic carpet so Anna and Patrick took all the kids sledding and it was really fun until it started pouring on them and they all had to come home. Over all the weather was perfect. The snow is not great this year. It hasn’t snowed much and it’s been really war so it’s pretty slushy or just icy in the shade.

By our last day I was feeling so much better and the weather was just too warm and the snow wasn’t great so we decided to go for a hike. It was beautiful and fun! Even Jude loved walking around the Alps.

Over all, besides my sickness, we had a really really fun week! We look forward to next year when Drake is on the lift with us… we’ll be looking for someone to take to hang with Jude during the day… so if you’re interested, let us know!