This winter season was a bit disappointing for us. For one thing the snow was late. For another, at almost no point were all four of us healthy at the same time. Someone always had a cold / cough / flu / whatever. Super annoying. We still had a few great days. We visited Anita's parents in Northern Germany for New Year's. Leonie learned ice skating on the local outdoor rink in Thalwil. The kids both practiced skiing in Oberiberg. I went sledging at Melchsee Frutt with my team from work. And we spent a great week in Austria in the family hotel Kröller. Both kids attended ski lessons there and Leonie ended up making second place in the week's final race. She can do red runs now and has a total blast. A crucial step for us to go skiing together. Lukas made some progress as well, but he's still in kamikaze mode. Put him on skis and he'll cheerfully point them straight down the slope and go "whee!". He doesn't care about direction or breaking. Speed freak. I compressed entire days of skiing into the few hours that the kids had their lessons. Still managed to cover most of the resort and do about 10 vertical km a day.
Thus overall a good season in some ways, but terrible in others. My climbing completely fell by the wayside. Hardly made it to the gym at all, nevermind any real (ice) climbing. Hopefully 2023 will be better again in terms of health and fitness.
Spontaneous walk up the Albis when Afroz visited. The weather was so nice that we had lunch on the terrace and then I left for the hike without even donning a jacket. It did get a bit chilly a few hours into it - still January after all ;-P
Anita, Leonie, Lukas. Lukas didn't get the concept of ice skates at all. But he was totally into getting sped around the ice on the pratice chair thingies.
Leonie on a Popo-Schlitten (saucer sled?).
Lukas, a moment before going airborne.
Playing in the snow is tiring!
Łukasz, Andrej, Sören, Lucija. Not too shabby a spot for lunch.
Lucija, Sören, Łukasz
Lucija
Łukasz outrunning some strangers
Andrej brought his entire family along and the kids were doing well on the run too!
Leonie and Lukas inspecting the ponies at the Kinderhotel.
Getting acquainted with the snow on a breakneck speed sledge run.
The family race is on! Leonie on my lap was shouting "Daddy! Super-Turbo-Rössli! Faster! They are closing in!"
The hotel allowed us a few moments without kids every night - which we celebrated with cocktails.
Lukas trying a snow bike.
Ooooh yeah!
Look at this sad white line through green meadows... The final section of the black run down to the valley. I peaked at ~90km/h ;-P
Leonie got to ride one of the ponies. She's completely obsessed with horses at the moment, so this was a dream for her.
Lukas and his ski teachers. The entire hotel and resort was overrun by Dutch people. This included the teachers who often spoke Dutch natively.
Leonie skiing down in her group of ski kids.
We got to do a few daughter / father runs as well.
The entire family going up on the last day.
