Do you ski?

When we came here for our trip to scout out a new place to live,it was surprising how often we were asked this question. Even more than "Where are you from?" or "What do you do?" Since Switzerland's surface area is 65% mountains I can see why they have such a love affair with all mountain sports.  At the drop-off at Travis's school it is funny to hear all the moms talking about where they skied that weekend and often they are dressed in their ski clothes ready to go while their kids are in school. I myself have scooted off after the drop-off to hit the slopes as well! The closest resort is 15 minutes away, with bigger resorts like Verbier and Port de Soleil 45 minutes away.

The school that Travis attends, Haut-Lac, starts taking the kids for skiing every week starting in first grade, and they have ski teams that regularly participate in competitions. It's amazing to me that they take them skiing at such a young age.  Ryan and I first skiied when we were 13 and 10, respectively.  We have put Savannah in a "Jardin de Neige" (snow garden) where she and other 3-4 year olds get bits of practice. Really it is just babysitting on skis! Travis starts private lessons this week as there was a lot of standing around in his group lessons and not so much skiing. After their lessons we have rewarded them by taking them sledding, which they both prefer to skiing.

Prior to this past weekend, both kids were pretty fearless. Unfortunately we got a little too overconfident this past weekend and took the kids to a slope to ski with us. They say you shouldn't attempt to teach your own kids to ski and that is definitely the truth!To put it mildly, it was a disaster-lots of crashing and crying by most members of the family!  I'm still sore from going up the ski-pull while trying to keep mine and Travis's skis straight. We fell off the pull and got our skis all tangled up.

This past weekend aside, Ryan and I are really enjoying the opportunity however to improve our own skiing abilities. It definitely is different here-they don't have names for the runs(called "pistes") but they have names for the lifts. Therefore it is difficult to know where you are and what level slope you are on. It seems rather easy to ski right off the slope and go "off-piste!" (Which is rather dangerous, as the threat of avalanches is particularly bad this year.)

 In a few weeks we already have another school break (called "Ski Week", naturally) which seems pretty soon considering we just had such a long Christmas break! However, we won't be skiing that week-we're headed to Barcelona for Mobile World Conference-hopefully Ryan will be able to get away to enjoy the city with us!

Couple other snow-related topics: We went to Geneva last weekend to see "Frozen" in 3D and more importantly in English! Of course we are all loving the songs and have been watching clips on Youtube!

Lausaunne is the home of the Olympic committee as well as the Olympic Museum which recently reopened after two years of restoration. There was so much interesting Olympic memorabilia there including medals, mascots, and sports equipment. It really got us in the spirit of this year's Winter Olympics!

This is Norway's mascots from 1994-the girl is named Kristin!