SKIING!!!!

Over President's day weekend we headed back up to Garmisch, but this time to do some skiing. The boys have been begging me and begging me to go skiing and I promised them a ski trip this year. Lucky for me a travel agent found us a place to stay. I was at my wits end trying to translate all the pages, see if they had snow, good skiing for beginners, English lessons, etc. So I threw up my hands and went to this wonderful travel agent and for 5 euros she found us a wonderful place about 20 minutes from Garmisch which has the Army base right there. So after a false start (because I forgot the international driver's licenses and we have to travel through Austria to get there) we made it on Friday as it was still snowing the whole way there. We got the boys signed up for ski lessons the next day and headed to our little apartment. The people who own it were the nicest people!!! They were so welcoming, friendly and had great advice for us!! After dinner we broke out a new game the boys got for Christmas and played Cars Monopoly!! The boys loved it and so did I!! The game didn't take forever like the original monopoly. We could play two to three games in an hour!!

Saturday was our big ski day. The people where we were staying said they received 1 foot of snow each day for the past four days. We woke up to beautiful sunshine weather on Saturday morning and the boys were ready to go!!!

 

 

Waiting for the room to open up to check them in

 

All checked in and all smiles ready to get the lessons started.  They had a special going on so the boys were actually there from 8:30-2:30 and they fed them lunch.  This gave David and I a little freedom to go check out the slopes and get some of our own skiing on!!!

We rode up the gondola - this was a first for me for skiing.  They are moving and you put your skis on the outside and try and make it in with your poles as it moves around.  There were a TON of people so it was like a heard of cattle.  But we made it in and headed up the mountain. 

Once we got to the top of the Gondola we put on our skis and headed for this six person lift.  One thing we found out is that the kids are small and sneak right between you and head up to the front of the line.  But we made it on the lift and up we go some more!!!

We were both very excited about getting on the slopes in the Alps!!! 

The view at the top!!  We had such beautiful weather for skiing and sooooo much powder!!!  It couldn't have been better skiing conditions! 

David heading down the mountain!

Another beautiful scenery of the day!!!

We skied down the hill about half way and found a little place to stop for lunch.  Since the boys were being fed, we took the time to enjoy a quiet lunch!!

We decided to sit outside because it was so nice and we were warm from skiing.  But not so warm that we didn't need some good hot chocolate!

Our view for lunch!!  Got to love that blue sky!!!  We both tried something new and enjoyed our German lunch!!  After that we finished skiing down the mountain and checked in on the boys.  We were being sneaky about it because we didn't want them to see us.  It looked like they were having a good time!!

You can see Michael in the silver helmet going down the "hill"

AJ starting down the "hill" and Michael just finishing up.  This was as far as the went the whole day.  You can see the green carpet on the next shot which is where they hiked up and then went down again.  I didn't find out until later that is all that they did.  They never even made it on the rope tow.

 

Taking a little break

 

After checking up on the kids we went back up the hill for some more skiing.  The skiing was still great and lots of powder left on the mountain!  It was WONDERFUL!!! 

David saw this outside the gondola.  I didn't even know that they did that near by.  We headed down to pick up the boys from their lesson.

They were finishing up and hiking back inside.  They were told to carry their skis like firewood.  Michael was having a little trouble, but was managing.  They told us after the lesson they could ski up on the "backyard" until 4 pm.  AJ was all for it, but Michael didn't want to. 

Michael didn't realize that you could go up on the rope tow, he thought it was just what they were doing during lessons so he had taken off all his ski stuff.  So he was chasing AJ on the hill.  Then he decided he wanted to try it.  So David took him back to the car and put everything back on so he could try.  I taught both boys about the rope tow and how to get up the hill.  AJ caught on really quick, Michael did good too, but needed a little more help.

They both were having a hard time stopping, but I got in a good workout trying to keep up with them, catch them and put Michael on the rope tow.

AJ LOVED skiing and was getting the hang of it.  We were all exhausted by a great day of skiing so we packed up and headed back to the apartment for some dinner and more Cars Monopoly!

 

So I know I am getting ahead of myself, but trying to split the pictures, these were taken on Monday when we were heading back home.  It was clear blue sky when we woke up, really cold, so cold there was actually frost on the inside of the van window.  A little crazy. 

 

I just couldn't get over the beauty of the Alps!

 

All that snow on the left that is flat is a big lake that was almost completely frozen.

 

This was getting to the end of the lake where the sun hit it for more of the day and part of it was thawed.

This was one of my favorites!!  I do have to say all five of these pictures were taken from the car while we were driving.  Thank goodness for a good camera!!!  We couldn't really stop because the road was narrow and snowy and probably dangerous if we stopped.  All in all the first day was FANTASTIC!!!  We all had a lot of fun and AJ kept asking if we could go skiing the next day.  He wouldn't stop bugging me about it.  But that is for tomorrow.  :-)