Keenan on ski's... so cute!

We signed Keenan up for an introductory ski lesson, to see if he'd like doing that all day for 3 days or not.  Turns out, he loved skiing but only for 2 hours... then he was ready to play or be with us.

 Keenan looks so little next to the other kids... but he still looks so cute!  I was so proud of him, there were several kids crying/screaming about not wanting to be on their skis but not Keenan he was super excited.  He was all smiles and giggles when it was his turn to ski down the small hill.

 After his ski lesson I asked him if he had fun...  I'll see if I can capture the moment in words.  Keenan says "Ya, it was fun... I was like this (he gets all crouched down), then I was whoaaaaa, weeeeeee and I laughed lots! But I don't want to go again!"

Söll, Austria

We decided to take a wintery vacation this year and get more use out of our snowboards, after all we're not sure where our next post is and if there will even be snow there!  The "wintery" vacation sounded good but the weather didn't really cooperate... I'm not sure when the last snow even fell.  There were a lot of bare spots on the mountain but in all fairness I've snowboarded in much much worse.  The weather was warm so the runs were soft, not icy.

We went to Söll, Austria which is a part of SkiWelt a large interconnected ski area.  There are many villages connected by the runs.  I picked Söll because it was one of the only ski villages that offered daycare to babies 6 months and above (most were 1 year and older).

The daycare worked out great, it was located at the first gondola.  Our original plan was for Van to go to daycare, Keenan to do ski lessons and us to snowboard all day but after one introductory lesson Keenan said he'd rather just play and be with us.  We didn't want to push him too hard with the skiing so Keenan went to daycare in the morning while we snowboarded then we'd pick him up at noon for lunch then take him sledding all afternoon.

  http://www.skiwelt.at/en/

Yeah, a picture of Eric and I!  It seems one of us is usually behind the camera.

Check out all the bare mountain behind Eric

Keenan getting all bundled up.

Keenan LOVED the gondola rides, he was insistent on taking the red ones which took us to the very top of the mountain which gave us the view below.

Just showing more bare ground right under the lift.

 We're not exactly sure why there were witches, such as the one above, everywhere...

 The weather was beautiful and everyday we saw 3-5 hot air balloons.

A view of the town of Soll taken from the lift.

Snowboarding in Austria

These were taken in March, I think. Eric went snowboarding in Austria, I thought these pictures were pretty cool.

Lots of traveling...

After several failed attempts to line up a company to fly Sierra as unaccompanied cargo it was decided a while ago that I would have to fly to Kyiv and get her. The one glitch was, the planes that fly into Ljubljana are small and can't always accommodate a large dog and everyone's luggage so I had to fly in and out of Munich, Germany, a four hour drive away.

Saturday morning we got up bright (well grey) and early, shoved Keenan in his car seat still in his jammies and headed up to Munich. We drove through Austria, lots and lots of big long tunnels, then got stuck in traffic a little ways outside of Munich. We were pretty sure that I wasn't going to make my flight but I managed to huff, puff and waddle my way through the airport just in time to make my flight. Eric and Keenan stayed the night in Munich.

I arrived in Kyiv to some nasty nasty winter weather, freezing rain was falling and by the looks of things they've had a very snowy winter. Snow was piled up everywhere! Kyiv isn't very good at plowing roads and especially not good at shoveling sidewalks so there were cars on the sides of roads that looked like they were going to be there for quite awhile. It seemed crazy to think that in one day I had been in four countries.

Sierra was excited to see me but kept looking past me for Eric and possibly for Keenan. She really perked up when I put my phone next to her ear so she could hear both Eric and Keenan talking to her.

4 am the next morning a driver came to pick Sierra and I up so we go back to our new home. Wow, getting a dog out of Kyiv is quite the process, in addition to the shots and rabies testing she had done earlier once we got to the airport I had to take her upstairs to a vet who as far as I can tell just copied information off the papers I already had to a new sheet which NOBODY even looked at. Then I had to go check myself in for the flight but the ticket lady held my boarding pass while I had to go to a different counter to pay for Sierra ticket. Once again by the time I made it through security to my gate it was time to board. Grrr... so much for leisurly sipping on a latte while reading from my nook (e-reader), which by the way is very nice to travel with it. It fits so easily inside my purse.

Sierra was super excited to see Eric and Keenan. Keenan ran up to me with a couple of big red roses, since it was Valentines day and gave me a big kiss. Eric later told me that he let Keenan pick out the flowers and give the cashier money but then told him that the flowers were for "Keenan, not Mama".

The drive back to Ljubljana seemed much much longer as Keenan was one cranky kid. He was in that mood where he just doesn't know what he wants so he just cries. Thankfully he finally just fell asleep.

It's nice to have the family all together again... at least for a few weeks. Keenan and I go back to the States in about 4 weeks.