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We went up to the French Alps this past weekend with some friends. All the guys skied from Les Gets over to Morzine and met Lesley and I (who drove over) for lunch. Then they skied back. The weather was ok – alternating between grey with heavy snow and sunny and gorgeous. It was a nice day.
Here’s the ski group after lunch, about to ski back to Les Gets.
And a couple of snaps out the car window during the drive home.
Matthew and Nathan’s school is celebrating World Book Day by allowing the children to dress up as their favorite book character.
Of course that means I have two Harry Potters today. Aren’t they adorable?
Battling your evil twin is hard work, isn’t it Harry?
One of the great things about traveling a lot and living all over the world is that you get to meet many interesting and wonderful people. One of the first families we met when we moved to Malaysia in 2001 was the Yigiter Family – Nuray, Burol, Dennis and Ege. Matthew and Ege are the same age, and they made friends quickly. When we moved back to Malaysia from Thailand in 2008, Ege and Matthew were in the same class at Mont Kiara International School. Last weekend we met up with the Yigiters in Geneva city center as they were here for the day on their way home from a mid-term break ski holiday. It was fabulous to see them and hear how life is back in England (they left Malaysia last year too).
Matthew has decided to learn the guitar. His school offers lunchtime classes for beginners on Mondays, but he’s starting late in the school year and is going to have to do a LOT of practicing to catch up. He’s cool with that though, so we took him yesterday to Nyon to buy a beginner’s guitar. We’re all really excited about his new hobby.
The kids’ school had a couple of fund raisers for Haiti today. They were allowed to wear a hat to school in exchange for a chf 5 contribution to the fund. And then at 12:20 (the close of school on Wednesdays) the year 6 class ran a bake sale. I am interested to hear how much money they raised.
Matthew and Nacho ..um… “working” at the bakesale.
Matthew’s is wearing the Mad Hatter’s hat.
Nathan and Chris sporting their hats.
Nathan’s hat is a 2010 World Cup hat that his Daddy bought for him in Joburg.
We got up on time yesterday, even dug out the car and drove to school. But not many others did and given the option I chose to bring the kids home to help with the shoveling. I mean have a nice snow day and hot chocolates with me. :)
The kids got back well from Ski Camp. They were 12 lessons ahead, confident, a bit tired and happy to be home. But when we asked them Saturday afternoon what they would like to do on Sunday, they chimed, “ski!”. So we packed up the car before sunrise and headed over to the French Alps Sunday morning.
My main objective is really to ski, so I only brought our little Olympus U-Tough camera. I took a few shots from the moving car and then pretty much forgot I had the camera with me until we were through skiing. Opps.
We were surprised to see that the roads through the center of Geneva were not cleared.
The roads were much better once over in France. And the sunrise was beautiful.
Mike took some video of the skiing, but I have not connected that camera yet. I was busy skiing, but did remember to step out as we were repacking the car to get this quick snap of the cable cars coming up from the village.
And a couple Nathan took in the car on the way home. :)
The boys are still away at ski camp, but one of the teachers sent a great little update and this photo as a sneak peek. They will be giving us a disk of photos on their return. I can’t wait to hear all the stories and to see how well the boys will be skiing next time we go out!
photo by Kevin O’Byrne
…Feliz Navidad, Maligayang Pasko, Suksan Wan Christmas, A Blythe Yule, Happy Holidays, Nadolig Llawen, Selamat Hari Natal, Season’s Greetings, Seng Dan Fai Lok, Frohe Festtage, Buon Natale, Natale Hilare, Nollaig Shona Dhuit, Nollaig Chridheil!
Wishing you and yours every happiness this season.
