Settimana Bianca in Verbier

We are in the midst of a fantastic week with the Hansons/Kubiks and Kuhns in Verbier, Switzerland. 20cm of snow on the first day, 3 beautiful blue bird days after that, plenty of of-piste powder skiing with Tucker as our guide, frequent fondue lunches and lots of good beer. We're staying at the Chalet Chocolat with a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and evening alpen glow.

Lila and Claire built a fancy fort for story telling and magic tricks.

And here they are with Lilly prepped for their first day of ski school with Travis from Australia.

Claire's and Lila's recent events

Here's Claire with her two best friends from school, Shelby and Haley, in the school playground. They used this picture on a Valentine's Day card for their teacher, Miss Travers.

Lila performed in the third grade ballet performance last week and had a blast.

She had practiced for weeks and did a good job channelling her nervous butterflies. You can check out the video of her performance in the sidebar as well.

Here is Lila with her Italian friends Maria Sofia, Marta, Helena and Valentina.

And here's Claire with her two best friends from school, Shelby and Haley.

 

Lunch in the country

This past weekend we went down to Merene (in the Langhe wine country) to have lunch with the family who owns the apartment we are staying in. Claudio & Michele flew down in his Jet Ranger and flew Julia and Lila back to Torino. It's about 45 min by car, 16 min by helicopter.

Lila and the youngest Recchi boy, Orlando, in the back - Lila got to fly over her school on the way home.

This is the snow covered yard at the Siniscalco family's country house.

Zermatt 2009

After a long day skiing and a huge lunch with too much wine - hoping to make it down the mountain!

The "kids table" at Chalet Grace.

Playing in the yoga room of Chalet Grace

Gang at the Gornergrat mountain top station (Uve, Jim, Tom, Cris, Sergio, Nuria, Christian, Ana and Julia)

Adult dinner at Chalet Maurice - this is the chalet we stayed in - all new, very nice and very modern.

Kids after dinner - Lila, Claire, Nicole, Sofia, Camilla and the two Alexs in the rear.

Zermatt for the New Year

above: Claire enjoying the skiing, below: Lila at the top for a day of snowboarding

The view from the chalet looking over the town of Zermatt and to the Matterhorn in the distance.

Jules and Fern

We had some serious wind at the top one day with snow - visibility limited. below is Jonathan O.


On New Years day we had about 30cm of fresh snow and Jonathan (shown below), had a really nice double somersault ending with a face plant...

Whenever the kiddos get tired, a hot chocolate will usually perk them back up for some more skiing.

Looks like they approve of the hot coco at this mtn side bar...

Almost all the kids and thier ski guides managed to get into this photo - shows what a fun gang it is.

below: Rod Ward faking a bloody nose (was actually spilt mulled wine)

Family fun and sun in Florida for Chrstmas

Lila catching her first wave, with Uncle Nick as surfing coach.

Yet another year of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" - The girls all left notes and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. He of course left stockings full of goodies for all of us!

Ava, Claire and Rose preparing to spend yet another day mostly in the pool - they may turn into mermaids soon.

"Grandma Bootsie" came to visit us.

Julia and sister-in-law Abi

The local church had a skit on the birth of Jesus - and we helped supply the angels and shepherd (too bad their not like this all the time....)

Another beautiful day at Papa and Dooz's house...the view out the back to the Atlantic Ocean

Headed to the pool again...

Claire (in yellow top) with her cousins Mac, Ava and Rose on the beach in Jupiter Island



Lila got a guitar for Christmas and is keen to learn to play. James Taylor, here we come!

Day trip to Sestriere

Here is Claudio - who is an amazing skier, I just tried to keep up with him and the boys!

Claudio, Ottavio, Orlando and I went up to Sestriere on Sat to ski for the day - it's only about 1.25 hour drive to the slopes of the via latte, where you can connect to many resorts. You can see the deep snow from the poma lift below, new tracks down the sides. Not as much snow here as there was in Cervinia, but still wonderful.