Snow!!

It was unusually cold here the last few days, which means that we finally got some beautiful snow at our house! Here are a couple views out the back and side of our house.


And some pretty bushes with red berries.

For some reason the persimmons have not fallen off our tree yet this year (despite violent shaking). Makes for an usual picture with the snow!

Since we haven't had the chance to take Piper skiing yet this year, we decided it would be a good time to give him a chance to just ski down our backyard. Isn't he adorable on his tiny skiis?!

Kevin was his ski lift.

And of course all the boys did some sledding.

Yes, I realize he has no hat or gloves on. The very first words out of my mouth after "smile" were "go get a hat and gloves on!!"

We were going to leave for Germany today, but CJ woke up Saturday morning sick, so we thought we'd give him an extra day to recover. We still opened gifts that our friends and family sent home with us on Saturday morning.

excitement

surprise

and joy!

Thank you for the fun gifts!

Today (Sunday), I decided to take our oldest skiing on the mountains behind our house. We went to Col de Marcieu, which is a small family friendly place about 20 minutes up into the Chartreuse.

View of the Belledonne mountains across the valley.

This is the ski station.

They have a little beginner and sledding area with a little conveyor belt. We did this a lot last year with Piper sledding and CJ just learning to ski.

Since it was just E and I, we were able to go up the bigger hills.

Riding up the disc lifts.

Aren't the trees lovely?

View from the top. We had a great day and he did really good for his second time out for the season. Below is a video of him taken on the second run - he ended up hitting the little jumps a lot faster as the day wore on, but I didn't get more video of it.

We head out tomorrow for Germany! We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!