Happy New Year!!

After a wonderful Christmas celebration in Brussels, we were off to snowy Switzerland to start the 2nd leg of Kassy's European adventure with the de Kerchove family. There were a lot of firsts for Kassy this part of the trip while she tried out just a few of the winter sports the Swiss Alps has to offer. I have to admit, she was really a champion...from snowshoeing with an 8kg baby on her belly...to strapping on a pair of skis for the first time. She was really a natural at everything and definitely seemed to have a blast! Who knows...maybe she'll take up paraskiing next year.

Snowshoeing with the boys...

Kassy's first day of skiing...with her 2 personal coaches!

Off to conquer the ski slopes...by sled!

After a year without skiing, Alexis was quite happy as well to head up into the mountains each morning with some great ski partners, Cedric, Alexandre...and myself! That's right, after nearly 3 years, I finally took to the slopes for a few hours with Alexis one sunny afternoon and really had a fantastic time.

In terms of weather, we can definitely consider ourselves lucky. We had quite a few beautiful sunny days followed by a TON of snow. So much that many parts of the mountain were actually closed due to avalanche risk. This was especially crazy because the ski season in the Swiss alps really got off to a late start with snow finally arriving a few weeks before Christmas.

Now you might be wondering what there was to do in the mountains with young kids when the blanket of snow in the garden was taller than Jack. Don't worry...all the kids still had an amazing time thanks to the chalet's sunny snow-free terrace, Daddy's amazing shoveling skills (he cleared off a huge section of the garden from loads of snow), and of course the ski slopes (well...skis for the older kids, sleds for the rest).

Faster...Faster...!!

The boys enjoying the snow before an afternoon of ski

Jack enjoying the slopes

Olivia trying out her sled

An impromptu cousin hug!

Of course there was also plenty of well appreciated downtime in the chalet...

Jack Jack and Papa

Tim enjoying a quiet moment with Kassy

It has been a really long time since we got to enjoy a week-long vacation with Cedric, Caroline and their children and I can definitely say we had an excellent time. Jack LOVED playing with all of his cousins and since coming home he still keeps asking to play with them all. Kassy was really amazing with all of the kids...I think she might have made some life-long friends. Hopefully we can repeat the week again sometime soon!

One of our final evenings together was New Year's Eve and it was definitely special since we got to celebrate with the older kids as well. During the week, everyone had a pretty strict bedtime in order to be well rested for ski-school the next day. So at the end, we got to celebrate two things 1) the coming New Year and 2) no more school! The evening was really energetic and memorable filled with lots of dancing, fireworks, and Chinese lanterns. Before we knew it, it was already midnight...

Let the New Year's Eve dance party begin!

Kassy, Thibault and Charles watching the clock ticking down to the New Year

As always after a great vacation, we took more pictures than we know what to do with. So, for anyone that is interested, click here for an album of our winter-fun in Switzerland. Next and final stop on Kassy's European adventure...Stockholm! Blogpost to follow...