In the hall of the mountain king #Stjeand'Arves

 This is probably the photo that would suffice to sum up the week.

But I'm sure I can take an extra few hundred words and some additional photos to help.

Well, it's been a while. 3 years since we were in St Jean d'Arves in the Alps. And a lot has happened since then! Which would probably have been enough to make it the best week ever. But nature also did its darnedest and threw us some sun (24 degrees at 2000m on Wednesday afternoon), overnight snow on the first day, sublime conditions, and a whole lot of family.

The reason we more-or-less keep taking the same photo but from different angles of those spikey mountains is that they are known as Les Aiguilles d'Arves - the point on the left looking like cat's ears (when you're a bit closer) and the other two as needles, can be seen from almost anywhere in the ski domain of Les Sybelles (with over 310km of runs).

 

For us it was a chance to be with the wider family again, after our failed winter attempt, and also to be in the fresh air, and the mountains, and lifting perspective a little.

And a 10 hour traffic jam. Despite doing it 4 times, I had completely forgotten that mammoth mass migration that is the French ski holiday. This year we have switched zones as we are no longer in Paris, and it was our turn to go first, so in theory it should have been a little quieter. But for hundreds and hundreds of kms, we were nose to tail, until the last 80km when everyone heading for the big resorts to the north and south of us peel away. We managed to get it together for the return journey and left at 7am, taking only 11hours to cover the 900km by car (very, very good going).

But really, all part of the Great Ski Adventure. 

It was both Crevette's and Noa's first time skiing and they totally looked the part: both sporting unicorn helmets and pink outfits by the end of the week, as well as medals.

For Crevette, she went on to enjoy 3 extra days with her cousin in Brittany, travelling with only daddy for the first time and generally increasing the Gonzales Girl Power ratio.

 

Me? I spent about 5 days washing everything before packing it away for another year.

Don't worry though, I also got a little trip of my own to my book club meet up in Paris, or as El Puma calls it, my "book club".

Plenty of reading also went on ;-)

Celebrate the day #roundtripsgreatandsmall

My kids doing what they do best...literally: travelling.

They are such good travellers. Any form of transport as long as it's moving. That includes escalators it turns out (crevette's first major experience).

It meant a 6.30am start (for me), an 8am departure by bus, a 9am departure by train, and then the metro and bus to see Kelley-Anne, Olivier, Rose, Clara and Elliott, who were all in Paris for just a few days from Houston in order to renew their visa. 

It's what memories are made of. And of course I didn't take a single photo of us all together.

12 hours later, having done the whole thing in reverse, we returned home totally knackered but totally happy. And slept through our alarms the next morning. Nothing that a quick sprint to school couldn't fix. We had a great lunch, wonderful company, a good play in the freezing cold play ground (hello Paris) and a calorie-rich hot chocolate and cream gift to keep us going. Presents were swapped, covid wasn't* and it was absolutely.worth.it.

 

And to finish off the month we celebrate Jean-Jacques 70th birthday. He lives right next door so we could make it a late one without too much hassle, and we got to meet his wonderful family: the kids went karting with them while Crevette and I stuck to more sedate activities (obviously only until the champagne was opened).

Yes, this is her weekend wear.

*I tested positive later in the week for omicron, but reckon the bitter winds put the germs off spreading.