First Visitors

After a month of cooking and cleaning for a new bunch of strangers each week it was a pleasure to have our first batch of familiar faces come and stay in our chalet. Jen and Forta came to stay for a week while Michelle Nielson made a last minute decision to stay for a 3 day long weekend.

It was a lot of fun cooking for the guys and being able to relax in the chalet for a few beers and a bit of Sauternes sticky wine after dinner. It was also a great time on the slopes with Jen taking to the skis for the first time and managing to master the local blue runs with style despite a few memorable stacks. Meanwhile Fort was all over the 180's in his twin tip skis and was regularly seen charging down the mountain in his orange jacket in a style that we nicknamed “tuck-a-la-orange!”. Both were looking very bling in their freshly purchased ski threads although fort did look a bit like the Incredible Hulk in Gav's extra large sized ski gloves! A few photos from the guys' time with us are below and for more photos check out the Forts blog (weblink on right hand side of this site – excuse the repetition of pics as our digital camera is unfortunately broken).

The end of the week also brought a great surprise visit from Em's cousins, Dave and Mike, and with plenty of beautifully pisted smooth runs, some fast-paced family fun was had.

After all this activity we had to have a couple of days of rest (reading, sleeping and catching up on email etc), which ended up being perfect timing as 2 days later we were greeted with some solid fresh snowfall - just in time to give Em a very white birthday! Bit different to the usual summer drinks and beach trips she is used to at home! We spent the day working but managed to have a great celebration at night at the local french bar with our new friends, enjoying a few “giraffes” (beer towers with their own tap) and lots of laughs. This was followed by our weekly day off which brought with it perfect blue skies and knee deep fresh powder! Can't get a better birthday pressie than that!

On a sadder note, we had a stark reminder of the power of the mountain when we heard that 5 English guys were hit by an avalanche boarding off-piste in a dangerous and secluded area on a very high risk avalanche day, and unfortunately 3 of them lost their lives. Not somewhere we would ever considering skiing but still very sad and brings home the importance of respecting God's powerful creation.

We've been spoilt over the last week with only 9 lovely guests staying in the chalet, so we are currently getting mentally prepared for the 18 new guests arriving at 7.30am tomorrow! Should be interesting!


Pics below courtesy of Forta and Jen

Sunrise from Jen and Fort's room in our chalet


Our first familiar chalet guests....Forta, Jen and Michelle


Gav cooking up some Coq au Vin in the chalet kitchen


Em and Jen on the slopes

View from the top!

Not a bad way to spend Monday arvo - kicking back on the slopes on deckchairs in the sun!