Lara's Skiing Progresses

Today was Lara's second of three Stage Two lessons, and they progressed farther up the beginner's slope, making it as far as three-quarters of the way to the top. The kids are supposed to be trying to achieve and maintain a good snowplough, and most of the time Lara succeeded, but not always, but I think that's about par for the course. She ought be to be going from the top of the beginner's slope next week, and assuming she survives that, without falling all the time, and is able to hold a decent snowplough, she should be OK to start Stage Three the week after. Those three lessons are still on the beginner's slope, but if she passes that stage, then Stage Four starts to introduce them to the main slope, and when she reaches that point, I might just explode with pride!

Smiley Kids

 

 Just a quick post to show off some photos we took of the kids this week. Lara wanted to see if her and Danil could fit in her carrier, and Olga bought Danil his suit for our Winter holidays, which is 12-18 month size and he pretty much fits it well now at 7 1/2 months....

 

Holiday Plan #2 - France

We've not got one holiday out of the way before we go and book another!

Since the skiing has been going so well, we really wanted to have a trip to Europe this winter, as much so Olga could enjoy the scenery as so we could try out our skiing skills on some proper slopes. I'd hoped we be able to tag along with my sister's annual family ski trip, and she must have read my mind, as she suggested exactly that a couple of weeks ago.

So, we're all off to Put St Vincent in France, close to the border with Italy, during the Easter school holidays in late March. Lara will be in ski school with her cousin Elizabeth, and there is a creche for Danny, so the grown ups can have some quality time on the piste. Yes, I said piste.

The holiday company is called Snowbizz, a family run English enterprise, and it's totally geared towards English families, which takes the stress off us having to sort out childcare in a foreign country. We'll be staying in an apartment block which is advertised as "ski-in, ski-out", which removes another hassle of long walks or buses to and from the lifts. It's the block to the left of this photograph:

We'll be flying to Turin from Manchester, and Catherine, Nick and the kids will be driving. With another special guest - our mum is coming too! Not to ski (famous last words!) but to enjoy the sights and fresh mountain air, and maybe the odd glass of vin chaud :-)

Busy Saturdays

We don't seem to have much "down time" at the moment, there always seems to be something to do. After bringing the last of our stuff up from High Wycombe over two weeks ago, we've hardly touched those boxes. Whilst work is keeping us nicely busy in the week, we're making sure we go skiing at least twice a week in the evenings, and then there's Saturdays... so far October's Saturdays have been hectic to say the least. Lara has had her Stage 1 skiing lessons for starters, which she has passed (all six children passed, so long as they can stand up on their skis, they pass this level; it's Level 2 when they can be failed, they need to maintain a proper snowplough...), then we had our trip to Wycombe. The Saturday after that Olga and I took the dogs to a dog trainer for some one-on-two coaching to see if we can't improve their behaviour around other dogs. They weren't completely useless, and gave us some hope that one day we'll be able to let them off in a park, they can go and play with other dogs, and come back when we call them. The weather that day was lovely, and on the spur of the moment I decided to whisk the family off to Blackpool to see the illuminations. It's only a 45 minute drive away, we did all the important things - we saw the Tower, some trams, we went onto the beach (we didn't paddle, the tide was way out), Lara soaked herself in pools, I took some photos, Lara had a ride on a donkey called Paddy (£2.50 for anyone wondering what the going rate is for a donkey ride on Blackpool beach is these days), we had fish and chips in a cafe, Lara had an ice-cream despite the rapidly-lowering temperatures, I got fleeced in an amusment arcade trying to grab Lara a new cuddly toy, we got fed up of the crowds on the prom on a Saturday evening and we came home. In a way I'm glad Olga saw it on a Saturday evening, just as the stag parties and hen do's were getting started, it made me glad I never took her there for a romantic weekend, it's just not that kind of place. Anyway, we came away with some nice photos:

Then this last Saturday, after Lara's skiing, it was a quick trip into Manchester's Trafford Centre, my first visit to this huge shopping centre. We set a personal best, being in and out in under 30 minutes, with only a random pair of jeans for me, and our new camera, which was the whole point of going in in the first place. My old DSLR is on its way out, giving me errors when I really need it to work; I've had it for almost 10 years, so it's done a great job, but it's been replaced by a "bridge camera" - not an SLR as such, but more than a compact camera. It's a Sony DSC-HX200V, and it's brilliant. I can take 3D photos, it has GPS logging, and can even take photos automatically when it detects a smile (a normal smile or a BIG smile, I can set its smile-sensitivity!). Anyway, I'll not go on about it, but the photos below are taken with it. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, dashing out of the Trafford Centre before we bought anything else. Then it was straight onto Chester, where there is a sports clothing shop that had a ski jacket we wanted Olga to try on. Plus I wanted to see what Chester city centre was like, and it's lovely. Then back to Bury, for a bit more shopping (still can't find Olga the perfect ski jacket) before heading in Bury in the evening for the annual "Festival of Light" show. We didn't know what to expect, but it was busy. Some fairground rides, some market stalls, firebreathers, fire throwers, plenty of Romanians hawking battery-operated torch toys for the kids (yes, Lara got one, it was impossible to say no).
So far we have no plans for this Saturday. We've booked Lara's Stage 2 skiing lessons for Sunday mornings now, so we can have the odd night out on Friday without having to get up at 7am on Saturday! We're up early tomorrow morning to try out "pre-work skiing". The slope opens at 7.30am on Wednesdays, so we're going over there to see what it's like to ski when the snow is fresh...

Holiday Plan #1 - Canada

As part of our Permanent Residency visa process, we must activate our visas before May 31st 2013, although we don't have to actually move by then. We're going to activate them by going on holiday to Canada over Christmas and New Year - we're now constrained by Lara's school holidays. After much agonising over different itineries and timings, and whether to use a travel agent or not, we've decided to book it all ourselves, and we're flying out on Christmas Day! Besides having the cheapest flights around that period, we also hope the aeroplanes themselves will be less busy, given the plan includes a 10-hour flight and a 5 year old and a 9-month old (by then) might kick up a fuss en-route.
The schedule is an morning flight from Manchester to Amsterdam (avoiding Santa's sleigh if he's late heading back to the North Pole), a 90 minute break there, then a 10-hour flight to Vancouver, where we will have to complete the immigration / visa activation process during a 2 hour 20 minute stopover, then a 1 hr 15min flight to Calgary. We've booked a hotel near the airport for two nights, so we should arrive there about 8pm on Christmas Day night, in time to watch the Canadian equivalent of the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special, before spending Boxing Day splashing around in the hotel's water park (indoor!).
We've not yet decided exactly how we'll handle the whole travelling-on-Christmas-Morning-instead-of-opening-presents thing with Lara. We think the only way to do it is to bring Christmas Day forward by 24 hours, after making special arrangements with Father Christmas. We can still have the whole turkey dinner thing on Christmas Eve, and Lara can open her big presents then, and I dare say there might be a little one left over for her to open on Christmas Morning, probably 2 minutes before our taxi arrives to take us to the airport. I hope the KLM staff will be all Christmassy, it might make for a more enjoyable flight for Lara. I expect the in-flight meal will be turkey.  I'm sure the Queen's Speech must be broadcast to the Commonwealth, and I'll have to catch a re-run of it, as 8pm in Calgary will be 3am Boxing Day at home.


View Canada Holiday in a larger map
After Calgary we drive to Canmore, pausing to have a look around Cochrane on the way. Both of these places are towns we're considering to live in once we make "the move".
We're going to stay for three nights in Canmore; we'll drive up to Banff for a day, and spend the rest of the time trying to get a "feel" for the town.

It'll be 30th December when we leave there, and we head to a lodge hotel pretty much in the middle of nowhere for the next three nights - the Delta Lodge Hotel in Kananaskis. This was the first hotel we found when we started thinking about a Canadian holiday, as it has a really good, family-orientated New Year's package, with a slap-up dinner on New Year's Eve and a brunch on New Year's Day. They arrange lots of things to do for the kids, and it's right next to the ski park developed for the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988, if we feel like hitting the slopes for a few hours. We can only do that one at a time though, so the other one looks after the kids, so we're not planning on doing much skiing, if any. There is sledging, ice skating, snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing (with the kids in a pull-along trailer behind Olga - well, she's the expert!) to try out as well. This is the lodge in Winter:

 Though this photo gives a better impression of it's seclusion:

We leave there on the 2nd January and drive back to Calgary, hopefully to do some shopping. We'll stay one night in another hotel near the airport, then we fly home on Thursday 3rd, from Calgary to Amsterdam then Manchester, arriving back at lunchtime on Friday 4th. This gives Lara the weekend to recover from any jetlag before starting back at school on the Monday.