Our Family Ski holiday with Snowbizz

I have written about the boys learning to ski and I have written about not being able to ski due to pregnancy, but I haven't written about our week away with Snowbizz properly yet.  It was our second time travelling to the alps with them and it was every bit as fantastic as before.  Please excuse the photo overdose, there are too many that I still want to share.

The little details have the biggest impact as a parent and being met at the airport by the smiling ladies in pink made any flight-stress disappear.  They went above and beyond during every part of our stay and the boys seemed to prefer their company to ours!

It was the first time I have really left Finn and he just loved the creche.  As well as having the nannies cooing over him, he managed to find a couple of girls who loved babies and were happy to read him stories and show him toys all day long.  It was definitely a case of clingy parent rather than clingy child as I felt so strange walking away, but he barely turned his head as I left!  He was always smiling or sleeping when I came to collect him and he won an award on the final day for being such a smiley baby.

Dylan and Archie were given the choice somedays whether they wanted to spend the afternoon with the bloke and I or in the creche and they would mostly choose staying in the creche.  As well as going sledging and for walks in the snow, they dressed up, coloured in, baked cakes and played with the great variety of toys.   They made friends easily and they enjoyed every moment.  Dylan loved the kids club in the evening which had a different theme each night from pizza party to disco and he felt very grown up being able to go to something his brothers were too little for.  

As for the bloke, he picked up where he left off with his ski lessons and loved getting back on the slopes.  His class for ski school was small with only three other students and he felt happy being able to find where he fit best between the classes.

I loved the freedom that comes with childcare, reading my book, going for a swim, wasting time on facebook and of course all the French food.  Everything is right on your doorstep which makes life so much easier with a young family and it took me about two minutes to get from our apartment to the creche or cafe.  

Our apartment had everything we needed, with two bedrooms (bunk beds for the big two) and a great living area.  The balcony was perfect for watching the early risers on the slopes and the kitchen had a hob and microwave so we could cook for ourselves when we wanted too (pretty necessary when you have a child with allergies).  

Our week with Snowbizz gave us a great balance between time together and time apart.  We all loved doing our own thing for the morning and then enjoying family time in the afternoon.  We took the bigger two boys up on the chairlift as walkers to enjoy the views from up high and a different place to eat.  It was easy to have one on one time with them each, or to do things only suitable for the older boys and know that Finn was well looked after and happy.  

We loved that right outside our front door there was a little area for sledging and we even managed to borrow a baby sledge for Finn, although as they don't do helmets that little he had to stay on the flat ground - Archie was more than happy to brum him along!

My little sister is working at the resort as the head nanny, so not only did the boys get to see their much loved Aunty NatNat, I also knew how great the creche staff were and felt happy handing my babies over.  I was so impressed with the quality of the childcare on our last visit that we were already confident that the boys would love it.

Don't forget to check out my post on 5 things not to miss on a Snowbizz holiday.

We had an amazing family holiday with Snowbizz and can't wait to return.  Everything about it went smoothly, the boys learned so much, I got to rest and Finn smiled all week,  Thank you to Snowbizz for inviting us back.

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Learning to Ski at 2 and 4

I was 26 when I first put on skis and wobbled around on snow.  I was nervous, worried and excited about learning to ski and it exceeded every expectation I had.  This year my biggest two boys had the chance to try it out themselves and if they were as nervous as I was then they were much better at hiding it.  Snowbizz offers lessons in their 'Totons' class for three and four year olds, but as Archie was so close to turning 3 they allowed him to give it a go, and it was agreed that if he couldn't manage then he would stay in the creche in the mornings with his youngest brother.

On our first afternoon we took them down to the hire shop and picked up some boots and skis for them and the next morning I dropped them at the creche dressed in their thermals and salopettes ready for their first lesson.  I watched nervously from the balcony at 10am as they ascended (in what I nicknamed The March of the Totons) and then had to peel myself away knowing I would only be a distraction.  I picked them up at lunch time desperate to hear tales of their day and it seems both of them took learning this new skill in their stride.

My cautious big boy loved his first lesson, talked a lot about the 'magic carpet' (a moving walkway on the snow that does the job of a chair lift on the nursery slopes) and declared that he went really fast.  My daredevil of a two year old told me that skiing was fun and that he was going to do it everyday.

Their class had 9 children in as it was a busy week, but those nine children were accompanied by two ski instructors and two of the nannies from the creche.  I crept up and hid behind a hut to watch them on their second day and their last day and it was amazing to see how confident they all were.  The instructors gave them new challenges as they progressed and the nannies encouraged them, looked after the younger ones as they got tired towards the end of the lesson, helped put mittens on when they fell off and kept the lessons fun.

I think I was more surprised than anyone when on the final day Dylan didn't join the rest of his class.  Another boy and him had done so well on the nursery slopes that they went up the mountain with one of the instructors in a chair lift and skied down a green slope!   My baby boy, who really isn't all that sporty, was skiing down a mountain! It was more than I expected, he wasn't even four and a half and he was enjoying it so much.  He was so proud telling me how he skied down all the way from the top and he was delighted when his instructor brought out the sweets at the end of the lesson!  

Archie went progressively higher up the mountain and had to use his 'steering wheel' to make things more challenging as the week progressed.  At not yet three his stamina started to lag after three quarters of an hour but he did so well in all his lessons and he loved the experience.

We are desperate to go back again next winter, not just because I want to ski, but because the boys did so well and they really enjoyed the experience, it would be great to watch them progress.  By next winter Dylan will be 5 and joining the 'Junior ski school' and Archie will be nearly 4 and have the advantage of this year's learning as he skis with the Totons again.

Thank you to Snowbizz for inviting us back and giving the boys so much physical confidence.  Their lessons were fantastic and I still can't believe my 4 year old skied down the mountain!

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