haha

'nuff said :p

Piste Off the 2nd

Bee would like it to be known that I fell off the piste because I can't ride switch not because of poor snow conditions

hmpfff.......

Piste off.

Now that spring is here the run down to the village is just a strip of snow. I slid right off it and got stuck in a tree. Bee was amused and thought the moment should be shared *le sigh*.

There's only one way out of such a stupid scenario; unstrapping and walking back up to the piste.

Happy Birthday Oogly Boogly Boy!!

My second born, Mr I3, is now Mr I4 *sniff sniff*
We celebrated with a trip to Disney Land, the crappiest place on Earth. Luckily I4 and Y5 aren't as cynical as me and thought that it was just wonderful rather than revoltingly plastic and pastel.

I dared the Bee to drink the water a-la Lisa Simpson. I have no idea why he refused.

Y5 drove a 'car'....

so did the birthday boy although he needed to sit on a backpack to see the 'road'.



We rode the Dumbo ride. Bee was thrilled.


The birthday boy was really excited about this train.

I was more excited by the horse.

We finished off the day with balloons...

and cake. Hotel parties are becoming a bit of a tradition for Imran.

huh? v.3

Every time I go past this carving, sculpture, weird, bull-like object I feel like gagging.
Now it's your turn.

Don't bother rubbing chilli in your eyes - it will still be there when the burning goes away.

huh? v.2

*warning this entry contains a dead Marmot*

Les 2 Marmottes is a pretty popular brand of tea around here.


The 2 Marmots on the box look pretty happy watching butterflies and sipping tea in their field of flowers.


The angry, dead Marmot at one of our local shops looks like he would like to throw stuff at the happy marmots.

Fridays

Friday is pretty much my favourite day of the week right now.
On Fridays Bee takes himself and the boys off to Thonon for the afternoon and I go off and ski on my own.
I love to ski with my nearest and dearest but being a bit of a misanthrope I love to go and cut loose on my own for a while too.


I eat my lunch in peace without having to avert disasters or share my food with rapacious seagulls.
Yes, half a baguette, a lump of cheese and a coffee does count as lunch ;)

I listen to my music just a little too loud (yep, that's headphones in my helmet - love 'em!!).



I usually go and explore a bit. Bee likes to hit the same run until he 'perfects' it but I like to mix it up a bit. Today I skiied to Chatel ...

and then made my way to the Canyon du Schott. Which, by the way, was awesome. Bumpy, jumpy, mogully fun. In fact it was so much fun that I skiied it a few times.

Thank you Bee for giving me Fridays :D

Evian

We went to Evian. The fountain was closed so we couldn't cart away buckets of water which is OK because we didn't bring our bucket with us (we don't even own a bucket although I guess we could have borrowed one from Marcus).


We bought a bottle of Evian from a take-away shop because it seemed pretty silly to come to Evian and not have a bottle to pose with.

We went for a walk by the lake...

and I played with the panorama function on my phone.

huh?

From the WTF?! files.

What the hell is going on with this picture? I'm still trying to figure out what the weird fleshy thing that she is trying to tear away from her neck is.
And why is his eyeball melting?
There should be some kind of bad taste legislation passed to rid the world of ghastly signs like this.

The road is long

....with many a winding bend

Cascade de Nyon

We went for a walk along a frozen stream to Cascade de Nyon.

We stopped for a photo....


then we went to the top of the falls...

and threw some sticks and stones at the stream.

The boys found a slide in the snow so we slid until the light began to fail...

then walked back to the car.

The spring

We found a spring near the stream.
It was awesome - the sand at the bottom bubbled and it had little streams of air bubbles coming up.
I3 wanted to throw things into it.


We also found some fungus...


and built a little dam.

Easter?

I guess Easter must be on the way.

We stopped by the bakery to buy a baguette....

and found this on the counter....

and all of these too. Mmmmm chocolatey goodness.

Avoriaz

We've started taking the boys up to Avoriaz.
Lots of people hate the architecture there (the kind of people who think that a ski town should look like a twee picture on a chocolate box and have lots of ginger bread houses) but I love it. From below it blends into the cliffs and in the town itself there are no cars, only sleighs, so you can ski the streets and enjoy the silence.

Schooling the boy

The elder boy a.k.a. Y5 a.k.a. Mr Crazypants Talksalot id doing his first 6 months of kindy with the peeps at Sydney Distance Education Primary School. Frankly it's a pain in the butt. We're all sick of writing letters when we could be discussing the lifestyles of owls or skiing but that's schools for you - why educate students when you can mass produce a bunch of mindless drones?

Anyways......
Here's some of the stuff he's done.

We went for a walk past the village (so he wouldn't attack the neighbour's gardens) and collected some plants (2 types of pines, 2 types of fern, ivy, moss and lichen to be precise) and .....

stuck it to an outline of his favourite numbers.


We made a puzzle of Western Europe and coloured the countries in like their flags. You might be wondering why the U.K. looks even wonkier than the other countries.

It's because we swapped it with the North Island of New Zealand. I hope the Kiwis don't mind :p


The lonely country in the middle is Thailand. We're not too keen on scale :p

The waterfall.

This waterfall is on the Choucas run. In summer the run has asphalt on it not snow and when the Tour de France comes to Morzine they ride along it.


13 wanted to smash the waterfall *sigh*