Restaurant Art

A couple weeks ago, we decided to go out for dinner on our way to retrieve Brendan from a birthday party. Abbie now refers to the restaurant as the "private restaurant" as the wall art was just a bit different than what you would see at home.
We were in the "wellness" room of the restaurant. To go with the theme, the waitress was wearing a cute nurses' dress. Well, cute for John. Considering the food wasn't particularly good, I don't think we'll be returning.

Brendan Boarding

Finally, the video of Brendan boarding. Note: if you are partial to motion sickness, you may want to sit this one out. This video was taken a week ago, and he's already improved quite a bit. He is less gorilla in his turns.




And here's another one of C.J. and Abbie. No motion sickness issues here, but you also don't get the close view of the other video.

Hockey - Take 2

The boys had their second hockey tournament yesterday. Once again, the tournament consisted of 3 games of 24 minutes, but the mandatory line changes were every minute and a half this time. The boys played on different lines, so one of them was always on the ice. Brendan mostly played defense, and C.J. played forward. C.J. even got an assist for one goal!
John and I froze. We expected the viewing to be cold as ice arenas here are kept at a freezing temperature -- unlike the Sharks tank where a sweatshirt will suffice. What we weren't expecting was for the games to be played outside! We could have used some long underwear, hot tea, and hats in order to help stay warm. Fortunately, we had winter jackets and gloves. Abbie was so cold that she ended up going inside the rink and entertaining herself in the entrance way. As there was a figure skating competition at the indoor rink, I think she had fun watching everyone. She learned how to say "My name is Abbie." in German and seemed to practice saying it quite a bit. She reported back that several people "spoke a little English."

The time of the game wasn't much fun either. The games started at 7:45am, and the boys had a dressing room call at 6:45am. As the arena was a 45 minute drive from our house, we left just before 6am. Ugh. It didn't help that we'd spent the last two days skiing and sledding in honor of John's 40th birthday. To say that we were all tired Sunday afternoon is an understatement.

The good thing about the outdoor rink was that I could get close for some good pictures.

Atzmaennig

On Sunday, we tried out a new ski area -- Atzmaennig. I wanted to find a small resort that had some good intermediate runs for the kids, but where I'd also feel comfortable letting the kids ski on their own. This place meets all of our needs! Even better, it is less than a 40 minute drive from our home and very reasonable. All 5 of us skied on a family pass for the day for 97 CHF. You can also buy points for the lifts, making it cost effective to only ski a few runs in the day. The intermediate ski area is serviced by two lifts -- one chair and one t-bar. Sadly, the chair goes slower than the t-bar, but we're lazy and like to relax on the way up, so we took the chair. Plus, it's a lot easier for the snowboarders. There are 6 runs, mostly categorized as red runs which are similar to blue runs in the States. Here, they have 4 colors of runs -- green, blue, red, and black. There are a few trees and powder between the runs so the kids can go off-piste a bit. There's also a restaurant at the top of the mountain that has incredible views. You can take the chair up and down without skiing, so it would even be a place where non-skiers could join us for lunch. All 3 kids followed John wherever he went, and it was quite adorable! I loved the fact that the runs are really well groomed. As much as we loved skiing by ourselves and having the kids in lessons, we realized that we still love to ski as a family. It was fun to see Abbie make a pizza (and, yes, they call a snowplow a pizza over here too!), and head straight down the hill. She usually made it down the hill first. She was going fast enough that I was pressed to keep up with her. By the end of the day, she even looked like she was in control. C.J. looks great, and Brendan has come really far too. By the end of the day, he was less gorilla like on the snowboard and able to stand upright a bit. He really enjoyed getting off the bunny hill and being challenged. Apparently, some of the kids in his lesson group weren't quite as adventurous as he was/is.

We had so much fun that I took the kids again on Tuesday with a friend and her two girls (Abbie's and Brendan's ages). Abbie's highlight was getting to ride the chair by herself with her friends. Brendan learned that if he stayed mostly on trail and C.J. went off trail a bit, they went the same speed. Brendan was also very brave when he got stuck off trail and was able to find his own way out with the help of a stranger. In the past, he would have been upset that he was left behind. My friend was impressed when C.J. offered to ski with the girls after lunch. We ended up staying together, but it just goes to show how responsible my oldest child is getting! It makes a mother proud.

Last night, we went back to the resort a third time. They offer a night skiing/fondue package, and C.J. was dying to try snowboarding under the lights. This time were were on the beginner's hill, and we had to use a button tow. I think it was just as much of a workout going up the hill as it was down! After an hour and a half of skiing, I was wiped. I'm a bit sore today. I finally bought new boots and my feet are getting used to them. They fit better than my old boots, but I'm in a bit of pain the first hour of skiing. I need to figure out how to adjust them better, or return to the shop for help getting them fitted. After that first hour of agony, my feet feel great, so I know there is hope! C.J. again made me proud. Abbie's friend fell and started crying. C.J. immediately stopped, unhooked his board, and went over to her to see if he could help. Gosh, I love that kid! John thought everyone had made a lot of progress just skiing without him on Tuesday.

This weekend, we're heading up to Davos/Klosters to celebrate John's birthday. The kids and I will have skied 5 out of 7 days. John's pretty proud that he went skiing the night before his client press released.

My friend and I agree that Atzmaennig will make a great day trip for us while the kids are at school. We can do a few runs, have lunch overlooking the Alps, and be home in time to meet the school bus.

Hockey Tournament

After four months of hockey practice, the boys finally made it into a hockey game! Saturday night, they played in a 4-on-4 tournament. The format was great. Every minute the horn blew, and both teams had to change their entire line. As such, the boys got a lot of play time. They mostly played defense, and they did really well holding off the opposition. In fact they made it all the way until the point that John turned to me and said, "Do you realize that the other team has never scored when they are on the ice." (I don't think John will be tempting fate with comments like that at their next game!) The tournament had four teams, so they ended up playing three games. Their team tied the first game, and lost the next two, but the boys didn't mind -- they were happy to be on the ice playing. I'm sure the coach's "good job!" to them helped as well. Other than those few words, he didn't speak a lot of English -- and I know the boys didn't understand his pre-game pep talk or any other coaching tidbits. Well, they did understand when to go on the ice -- a head tap and a point translates into any language.

I had a lot of fun watching. This is probably the only time that both boys will be playing on the same team. They really shouldn't even be on the same team now, but the club is playing C.J. down since he had never ice skated prior to joining the team/club. I thought it would be a problem for games, but the coach didn't seem to think so. At least I don't think he thought it was a problem -- he never responded to my email asking about it. If anyone had asked C.J. about his age during the tournament, he'd probably just stare back at them blankly anyway. I guess that's one advantage of not knowing the language.
Here's Brendan at the end of the night -- a tired, sweaty, but happy player!We went out to dinner to celebrate at a new (to us) Italian restaurant.

John took some video, but I'm not sure when he will get it uploaded so that I can post it.

Sledding

Last Sunday, we went sledding again. We headed back to the same place we sledded last time, as we had marked it on the GPS unit in our car. We were excited to see that the farmer had his lift running. It's a simple button tow (e.g. a little disc that you put between your legs to pull you up -- the predecessor to the t-bar), but it looked like everyone was having a lot of fun. We think it would be a great place to ski for just a few hours. The kids could have the run of the mountain as there is no way for them to get lost -- one lift up and not too many ways down. It would be one way for me to manage on my own. I wouldn't have to worry about keeping kids at different levels together. I need to figure out if it's open during the week, as I make take the kids one day next week while they are off school.
Everyone had fun sledding.
Brendan was resting. I even built a snowman. Well, 2/3 of a snowman, but who's counting?

Lucky had a great time as usual. The snow was a bit deep for her and she had to jump to move, as she was always sinking all the way to her belly. She quicly learned that running ON the sled course was a bit easier, as the snow was packed. Here's what the poor thing looks like at the end of the day:
It's almost impossible to get the packed snow off of her legs, short of just letting it melt. We've thought about getting her some fleece booties, but I doubt they would stay on through her snow play. The poor dog still hasn't figured out that she can't catch a snowball, and she'll dig around in the snow, convinced she just lost it.

Blue Royalty

Our snow students have completed their series of lessons and the awards are in. We now have royalty in our family including:

• Blue Princess
  
• Blue Prince
• Blue King

They each got a pin and their Swiss Snow School booklet signed off. With this booklet, they can go to any ski school in the country and automatically be placed in the right lesson group.

Most importantly, they had fun and all improved.

We headed to the beginner area early today to catch Abbie and Brendan in action. It didn't work out quite as expected. We saw Abbie on our first run. Unfortunately, she and a group of her pals had fallen off the t-bar and the rest of the lesson time was a rescue mission to retrieve the kids and reassemble their equipment. John took Brendan up to the top and he looked great coming down! No falls and he can obviously handle the blue runs (which are not an exact translation to blue runs in the U.S. as they have a red category that is between blue and black). We had told C.J. that we would be late getting him and he should get a hot chocolate while he waited. Well, this message got lost in transmission as we got a call from the woman who organizes the lessons wondering why we had forgotten to pick up C.J.. Ooops.

Vacation Planning

Who knew vacation planning could be so hard? I am spending a significant chunk of my time each day trying to finalize vacation plans for 2010. During our "look-see" trip, one of the wives told me that her hardest job each year was mapping out their vacations, and I thought exactly what you are thinking now. "Awww. It must be such a hard job. I really feel for you."

Well, I'm currently planning/booking:

• Ski weekend in February for John's 40th
• Easter trip to Venice
• May trip to Austria
• June cruise to the Northern European Capitals (cruise booked, but need excursions, pre-cruise hotel, etc.)
  
• October trip to New York for a wedding

And that isn't even half of what we want to do. I should also be:

• Booking additional ski weekends
• Booking ski week for NEXT year so that we can get an apartment and not be split in two hotel rooms
• Summer trip home
• August trip to Ireland (possibly)
• List of day trips for visitors - we don't want to take all the visitors to the same sights; instead we'd like to branch out so that we get the chance to explore more of Switzerland each time we have visitors
  

Between the web, guidebooks, and talking to friends, I could make this a full time job. I know, I know. Woe is me. My biggest problem is that I'm paralyzed by indecision. I always wonder, "Is this the best choice to stay?" And then I refuse to book and keep reading. So do you have any tips for streamlining the planning process? Or, heck, complicate my life and toss out other travel ideas!