Ski the Alps

We left Geneva on a Saturday morning for the three hour drive to our ski resort, Tignes. Tignes is part of a gargantuan ski area that is actually two together, Tignes and Val d'Isere. Longer ago than I'd like to admit my family skiied both of these areas, before they were connected, and I have fond memories of both. Of course NOTHING in town looked the same after being away for decades, but the Alps and the Grand Motte Glacier still took my breath away.

View from our balcony

FFM riding his favorite kind of lift - POMA aka surface lift. 

The beginning of the week was snowy, up past F's knees in a lot of places! 

Twilight walk to dinner with pal Haaken.

Sunny morning, Travis getting ready to pop on his skis.
We had to walk a few yards uphill to get to the ski run.

View down the mountain to the village of Tignes.

Lunch on mountain, totally different affair than in the US!

Enjoying long, quiet, beautiful ski runs.

FFM loved all the different kinds of lifts, this was a massive 30 person gondola.

Having fun in the powder after my big crash!

Eric and FFM walking to one of the funiculars.

Patiently waiting for our turn on the "mountain subway"

Family ski day!

Life sure is good!

One evening we decided to go out to dinner with my Mom and Eric. I randomly picked a restaurant that turned out to be a local delight. After searching for our location, literally at the end of the road, we walked into a cozy stone building that had a row of flaming metal boxes out front. New to us, we used sign language (only place my rusty French didn't work well with totally non-English speaking staff) to inquire about the flaming boxes. Turns out it was for dinner, so we ordered enough for the table. Yum! Tucked under a big copper chimney we grilled various strips of meat, dipped in an assortment of sauces, and followed it up with a giant dish of potatos au gratin. Declared a gastronomic success!

Storm rolling in again, must be about time to head home.

Geneva - Switzerland

Part two of our trip took us to Geneva, Switzerland via a high speed TGV train. Our ski resort was in France, but Geneva is the closest major city. We met up with some friends and family there for a few days of Swiss sight seeing.

I would like to say that I would happily travel by high speed train anytime. It was so smooth, so quiet, and SO FAST! Lovely way to go.

Leaving Paris on our way to Geneva

Living large!

 The train served us a snack on our three hour trip, brie, prosciutto, fruit, and a mini baguette. No lame bags of pretzels when flying across France! Grown ups could, of course, also have a glass of wine with their snack.

 Day 1 in Geneva was stunning, we went for a walk around part of the lake and watched the famous Jet d'Eau.

 FFM is a big fan of alternative modes of transportation,
 a trip on the free water taxi was a must.

Souvenir shopping in Geneva included buying a fair bit of chocolate and nearly coming home with a cuckoo clock. We also did housekeeping things like laundry; Travis gallantly took a couple of bags to the closest laundromat which happened to be located in the red light district. Walking around waiting for the spin cycle to finish he got to view all kinds of ladies strutting their stuff in nearby shop windows. Meanwhile FFM and I had a fun filled afternoon catching up on homework.

Next day we rented a tiny car 

and headed up the nearby mountains to the town of Gruyere.

 Guess what they make in Gruyere? Yup, delicious cheese! After watching the cheese maker start a batch of cheese we checked out the cheese flipping robot. The curing cheeses get flipped and rinsed with a brine until they are all done.

The whole place smelled a bit cheesy...nevertheless FFM thought we should bring one of these with us. Whole wheels weigh in at 35kg, so Travis vetoed him.

France - Paris

In February our family went on a long-planned trip to France. Growing up I lived overseas for a good portion of my childhood and family ski vacations were almost always in the Alps - coming to Colorado to ski was the big deal back then! Being a family of skiiers, my boys thought a trip to ski the Alps sounded like a grand idea, and why not swing by Paris and Geneva on the way?

We started in Paris...

Our lodging in Paris, Opera District.
 We stayed in the room connected to the balcony marked HOTEL.
The balcony wrapped around our whole room and the boys went out daily.

First stop, the Patisserie across the street for some treats.
We stopped often!

Day 1 - we toured the city by hop on hop off bus.
F had read about and wanted to see Le Pont Neuf.
A little ways down the river we encountered La Passerelle des Arts.

F locking our lock to the bridge

Sweethearts attach locks to the bridge to symbolize their love.
Tossing our family key into the Seine.
Le Pont Neuf is in the background.

The bridge is totally covered.
 It's probably a nuisance to the city, but it's very pretty to look at.

Entering Notre Dame

One of several rose windows.
 It was Sunday and a service was being held as we toured.

Notre Dame ceilings and stained glass

Of course we had to walk up hundreds of tiny stairs to see the view from the top...

...which included F's first good view of the Eiffel Tower.

F only requested 2 souvenirs, a beret and a light up Eiffel Tower.
The beret was a complete surprise to us, he wears it well!

Riding between attractions on the bus.
It was cool, but with our coats and hats on riding outside was comfortable.

Riding up the Champs Elysees we swung around the Arc de Triomphe

Stopping for a snack, again. Best macaroons ever.

Our last stop of the day was at the Eiffel Tower overlook at Trocadero.

The next day was our scheduled tour of the Eiffel Tower.
We arrived early to check it out before going all the way to the top.

First stop

All the way at the top.
The only time I was REALLY cold during the Paris days.

We warmed up on the Batobus,
a boat on the Seine that was part of our hop on hop off ticket.
It floated us past all the attractions and gave us some ideas
of other places to see later in the week.

That night we rode the Metro back to the Eiffel Tower to watch the lights.
As you can imagine FFM was totally engrossed with the whole subway experience.
Note the friendly Frenchman who is smiling at F's excitement.
Caught this in the brief moment he stopped vibrating.

Sparkly tower was well worth staying up past bedtime!

The only drizzly day occurred the morning we visited Versailles.
Lucky us! Here we are in the Hall of Mirrors

FFM liked the palace more than I ever imagined,
he can tell you all about the three Kings that lived there,
Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI.
The Sun King story and execution of Louis XVI particularly stuck with him.

We skipped the Louvre and wandered around it's grounds instead.
We opted for the Musee D'Orsay which turned out to be a good choice for our family.
I enjoyed the Impressionists, FFM fell in love with the Pointillists,
 and Travis found some appealing sculptures.

Next, on our way to Geneva!

Gifting DIY

We've lived in our house now for four (WHOA!) years. Being a middle aged house we do a fair bit of DIY as various things wear out and we slowly make tweaks to make it more our taste. One thing that has been on my DIY wishlist since we moved in has been to replace the kitchen light.

Old light = terrible blinding light that created massive shadows on the counters and table. Even with the addition of under cabinet lighting it was still abysmal.

This fall Travis created a lighting design for my Mom's basement remodel. Wishing he'd do the same for our kitchen, I moaned and groaned and said, "You know, all I really want for Christmas are new lights for our kitchen!"

Travis cleverly snuck around the next few weeks and not only made a whole lighting design, but managed to buy and hide all the materials he needed for the entire project. Christmas morning I was present with the lighting plan and sample fixture. SO EXCITED!  By New Year's the project was done and dusted, including a new paint job on the icky ceiling.

Cutting holes and pulling wire

Making good progress, waiting for the texture on the new drywall patch to dry so he could finish the paint job.

Ta da!
It's improved so much the light in the family room and dining room got added to the future lighting plan.