Schifahren Schule

For the past 4 weeks we've been taking ski lessons and today was our last day.  A while ago we signed up for lessons with an "International Ski School"at Flumserberg, which is a ski area about an hour south of us up in the mountains.  Our primary goal was to expose the kids to skiing and let them learn at this early age, and what better place for them to learn than in the Swiss Alps.  In fact, Ben has a ski trip coming up soon with his school so we wanted him to get a lot of practice before hand.  So anyway, this whole thing was mainly for the kids.  As for Jenny and I, we've never been the strongest skiers, and we've never done a lot of it.  Yes, we lived in Colorado for 4 years, but we hardly went skiing because it was so expensive.  Frankly, skiing is something we've never really done a whole lot of.  But times have changed and we're now in Switzerland.  Skiing is pretty much the "official" sport of Switzerland, and the people here take it very seriously.  So we thought now would be a good time to give skiing a serious try.  And like I said...the time and place seemed perfect for the kids to start learning.  

So like I said, we wanted to brush up on our techniques and get some good instruction on the basics.  So for the past 4 Saturdays we've been getting up at the crack of dawn (literally) and driving up into the mountains for a day of skiing.  Each time Ben would go to his class, Megan would go to her class, and Jenny and I would go to our class, and then we would all meet up again at the end of the day.  Jenny and I were in a class of about 6 people total.  It was really interesting.  We had people from Ireland, Romania, France, Italy, etc.  We all got to get to know each other, and we got to eat in several authentic "Swiss chalets."  It was fun.  Anyway, the 4 week course was a little expensive (don't ask) but I would definitely say it was worth it.  Overall, all 4 of us got some great instruction.  The kids did awesome, we did a lot of skiing, and we saw some pretty awesome scenery.  Best of all...NO ONE got injured.  Hooray!  

I still can't believe that my kids learned how to ski in the Swiss Alps.  Of all the places to learn.  Still can't get my head around that.  By the way, I've seen my son ski now several times, and he's already a better skier than me.  Skiing is definitely one of those things that is easier to learn when you're young.  Anyway, here's what it was like...

Life At Random

It's been a while since I've posted a "Life At Random."  I just noticed some of these pictures go back to October I think (like the Halloween masks.)  Anyway, here's some of the recent things we've done.  Things like having dinner at Patrick and Alison's house.  They are from Madrid and they treated us to Spanish cuisine.  Then there's our love for the "Chicken Man," a guy who sells the best rotisserie chicken out of his chicken van on the side of the road.  Also, Ben and I spent an afternoon building IKEA furniture for Megan's room.  We built her a new bookshelf and a new mini-closet, and Ben really enjoyed building it.  He was all into it.  There's also a bit of the holidays here, like Megan's Christmas recital at school, and some early December snow.  And lastly, one day while doing some Christmas shopping downtown I discovered a section of the city that was new to me, including a nice park overlooking the river.  Still discovering new things here a year later.