bubbadoo enjoying life: holidays in france

here come some new pics from our vacation, but first a few words about the experience here in france. as many of you would expect, they mainly speak french here, and contrary to people's assurances that 'you'll be fine, they all speak english', it's been quite a fun time trying to communicate with a group of people that generally have spoken zero english. while jen took some french back in the day, the two weeks i took in 7th grade don't count so looking foolish has been the norm. i must say though that the french are very tolerant of our ignorance and always seem to melt with a merci or bonjour from oliver so it's been ok. the drivers here are worse than most and they never yield for pedestrians or other drivers, but that's been the only sort of non-friendly behavior we've encountered.

pics are from all over the place and should be pretty self explanatory as far as the activity depicted. they begin in te airport. hope you're all well and having a great holiday.

andrew & jen

just in case any of you were wondering if he had the bug.

a little morning loafing around.

There wasn't really enough snow for snow angels, but we tried. Also took Oliver ice skating and skiing for the very first time. Skating was fun, but not sure we taught him anything and though he claimed he didn't like skiing at first he seemed to do quite well. We'll probably try and take him in California when we get back.

Here's the skiing. As stated, we weren't sure he liked it, but he did well and loved the hot chocolate.

here's some x-mas photos. we're a bit out of order, but this i'm still learning this blog thing and about ready to toss the computer, so hopefully i'll improve in the future.

there was no chimney, so santa had to leave the presents outside. oliver was more than happy to bring them inside.

this was also not a case of opening and putting aside, as every book and puzzle was played with before the next gift was unwrapped.

we had a very nice dinner after some wonderful translation from jen, whose high school french came back and saved us in many, though not all, situations.

keeping oliver entertained for a two hour meal wasn't easy, but he couldn't have been better behaved and capped it off with some delicious dessert.

there may not have been enough snow to build a snowman, but that didn't keep oliver from loving the one someone had left in front of the chalet.

here we got to combine a few of oliver's favorite things. he was able to drive the sled on the snow which could have given him the most enjoyment on the entire trip.

to finish off the first week of the trip just going to throw out a few random shots.