Two little powderhounds

The last few weeks of the school holidays were spent skiing at Whistler and it was beyond fabulous.  I know, I am very lucky.  I hope the boys realise how lucky they are as well one day. We were blessed with gorgeous weather and fantastic snow and skied almost every day.

From Whistler village you can ski two different mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb.  The two mountains are joined by the Peak to Peak Gondola a record breaking feat of remarkable engineering.  It is the longest unsupported span for a lift in the world and the highest lift system of it's kind in the world.      It was an amazing experience riding in it, although the Captain admitted to me afterwards he felt a little wary, the 4 year old however is a daredevil and as you can see had his eyes trained out the windows of the gondola the whole way.

We stayed in Whistler Village and it was just gorgeous, all the Christmas lights were still up and the atmosphere was amazing.  I felt like I was walking through an illustration in a vintage children's picture book about Christmas.

Whistler for kids is a magical experience.  The ski school was fantastic, great instructors and everything else you would expect from a ski school program.  They even attach Flaik's (a GPS) to the kids so that at the end of the day you can go online and track the runs that they did each day. Probably so the instructor doesn't lose a kid either I suppose.  We couldn't believe it when we saw that the 4 year old had done a couple of black diamond runs.   I mean, he said that he had done them but we, and I know it sounds bad but we didn't believe him!  But with "big brother" watching his every move we discovered he was actually telling us the truth!

There are even a few playgrounds dotted amongst the many runs.  This one is called The Tree Fort!  Hard to believe that they managed to scamper about all over this in ski boots.

The highlight of the holiday? Well for this one it was that he got poles!  Quite the milestone for a little powderhound!

On either side of Canada we squeezed in a few days in the States.  Including a quick side trip to Legoland.

Luckily for the grown ups someone at Legoland has a sense of humour.  Even R and I had a wonderful time.  (I am allowed to laugh at the Volvo thing, my parents have always had one!)

Several weeks away though and we are now thrilled to be home and I am looking forward to catching up with you all.  I have been thinking of all my QLD friends and hope you have all survived the wild weather.  It even made the news in Canada!

Skiing Thredbo

We have just returned from a fabulous week away at the snow and on our second night it snowed!  The boys were beyond delighted as they ran around outside in their pjs/thermals.  We sort of half managed to get them dressed before they escaped outside and engaged themselves in a snowball fight.

We booked the boys into Thredboland every day and I highly recommend it.  The Captain has also attended ski school at Perisher but was a bit luke warm about it.  This year was his first time at Thredbo and it was the little one's first trip to the snow, previous trips he has been dropped off in Canberra to spend quality time with Grandma and Grandpa. Thredboland was fantastic.  They kept the boys together at our request and the instructors that they had for the week were brilliant.  Both boys started off skiing Friday Flat on the magic carpet and by the end of the week had achieved the Captain's ambition of moving up to skiing Merritt's.  R and I ran into them both with their instructor as they were in the line to get onto the Cruiser Chair and The Captain was proud as punch that he was skiing the same terrain that we were! Speaking of Merritt's if skiing Thredbo and looking for somewhere reasonable to eat lunch on the mountain I can definitely recommend Merritts Mountain House.  The food was fantastic, we especially loved the Austrian Goulash and the styling of the restaurant is seriously gorgeous!  There is the most amazing collection of enamelware on display and whoever styled it is another Sound of Music fan, there were references to the movie everywhere.  Every meal we ate there I was wishing I had brought the camera! The photo below is from their site and is just a glimpse of the great styling and vintage enamelware decorating the restaurant. 

Sadly, the days of apres-ski are well and truly over for us... instead we spent several afternoons at the Thredbo Leisure Centre.  The boys adored the waterside and there is a convenient row of chairs placed in front of it for parents and carers to observe their charges at play.  For older kids there is one of those inflatable obstacle courses which also looked great fun.

The baby looks tiny coming down the slide but he was by far it's biggest fan, we had to drag him out of the pool when it was time to go home for dinner:

I know many people are very dismissive of skiing in Australia.  The snow is fairly unreliable and the runs are relatively short if you have skied abroad.  Even so I believe that skiing in Australia is one of the most beautiful places in the world to ski. The snow gums and their myriad of colours dotting the edges of the runs are truly beautiful and nowhere else in the world will you be able to spot wombat footprints in the snow from the chairlift.   I don't think I have ever been disappointed in the experiences that I have had skiing the Australian resorts.   From the wonderful holidays I spent at Guthega and Thredbo as a child with school friends to the many ski trips that R and I went on before we had the boys and now to the wonderful memories we are creating at the snow with our own children.