Since Mason's first disastrous ski lesson in early January, he has come a long way. After figuring out how to snowplow (or "make pizza" as he calls it), he has improved steadily, and is now chasing mom and dad down the slopes (or, often, we are chasing after him). Learning to ski has helped with his concept of time, as he now understands weekends as the days we can go skiing. With his new-found passion, we decided to skip a warm-weather vacation this year and go on a ski-holiday.We found a hotel in Saas Fee, Switzerland (pronounced "sauce fey") that offered on-site child-care for George, a spa for Nicole, kids dinners every night and ski runs up to 12,000 feet for guaranteed March snow. The village of Saas Fee is car-free, with only small electric cars allowed inside. Upon arrival, the hotel bellhop came to the parking ramp to pick us up in the electric taxi. Mason was very excited, as he had been reading one of his books called the "Snowy Vacation" where a bellhop picks up the family in a funny car, so Mason thought it was the coolest thing ever. The hotel was great (Mason walked in the lobby and said "ooooh, fancy!") and they upgraded our room to a two-room suite, so Mason had his own bedroom. Nicole declared that this would be just like a second-honeymoon. And then reality set in...
First, Mason had no interest in attending the kids dinners, instead preferring to torture mom and dad and the rest of the hotel guests in the main dining room. Then, George came down with a high fever on the third day, rendering the child-care useless for the last few days. Also, Mason's overall behavior for the first few days had us looking into whether it would still be legal to put him up for adoption. Luckily for us (and him), his behaviour improved the last few days, and for the last two nights he actually agreed to go to the kid's dinner, so we were able to eat our dinners in the relative peace and quiet of a 7-month old.
As for the skiing, it snowed non-stop for the first two days, with high winds, making visibility very poor, but the snow was excellent. We were definitely the only ones dragging our three-year old along to ski for the first few days, and I think we were a bit self-conscious as everyone stared at us on the trams up the mountain. However, Mason skied the runs very well, only getting tired coming down the runs from the very top of the mountain (I think the altitude at 12,000 feet was a bit much for the little guy), and a few intermediate runs we needed to take to get from one side of the mountain to the other. He preferred to bomb down the easy runs, despite our constant pleas to practice his turns. "No, Daddy, I need to make my french fries and go really, REALLY fast." "French fries" is the term we use for making your skis parallel. The weather cleared the last few days, and along with all the fresh snow, it made for great conditions. With George sick, Mason and I tamed the mountain on the last day, with Mason making really nice turns on the last few runs. Amazing how fast little kids can pick it up. Next season Mason will probably be a better skier than me, not that that is saying much.
