Adventures with four girls: Our second ski trip to Austria!

Last year on our last night of our ski trip in Austria with friends, we were all nostalgic about what a great time we were having when Cam said, "We should do this again next year." So inspired, we jumped up and ran to the front desk and asked them to book us again next year. First time we've done such a thing and a bit surprised that nothing came up to derail a repeat, we indeed made it back for a repeat.

Our destination is a tiny little town in Austria called Grossarl (although the double "s" looks like a cursive "B" in their spelling). We stay at a kinderhotel called Moar Gut which is this amazing, gem of a family owned hotel. They have sledding, a farm, an amazing kids play area inside and out, super friendly kids club employees, wonderful food and wine and a fun, dancing chicken who comes each night to whisk away the kids after they eat so that the parents can enjoy the end of a more leisurely meal.

This being the second year of skiing for the kids meant they were that much better this year. We put Anna and Carter (the littlest ones) in ski camp the first day and hired a 1/2 day instructor for the other five kids. The second day we hired another instructor for just Anna and Carter and then used him again to help the big kids with their turns on the third day. In the afternoons and on the last couple of days we just all skied "together" in that kids would split off and take off by ability and bravery at the moment. The mountain had a natural meeting spot at an easy slope so we could just meet up easily rather than having to schedule complicated meeting times.

The only couple of bummers about the trip were that we didn't realize the Christmas market only operated on the weekend and we ended up missing it (it had been a real highlight the year before) and on the last day, Jane wasn't feeling well so she and I missed the last day of skiing. She slept for three hours in the middle of the day so she clearly wasn't at the top of her game.

Other than those minor blips it was another great vacation. The snow was better than last year and all the kids are already asking if we can go again next year.

Regan and Sophia getting ready to go skiing on first day. The big kids were *not* excited about having to wear the ski school bibs. Fortunately their instructor let them shed the bibs right away.

Anna and Carter on the ski school bus. Surrounded by German speaking kids. These kids crack us up so much. They are often together since our families are good friends, but they *always* act like they don't want to play together when they are first around each other. After about 30 minutes or so, they kind of shrug and seemingly think "Well, you're all I've got..." and then they play like they are best buddies. Doesn't matter if they went through the SAME experience the day before, they will repeat the whole, "I don't want to play with you" exercise every. single. time.

Up on the mountain!

There is Anna (in yellow pants) in her ski school class. I skied by and was worried because the instructor was speaking in German. I was worried that Anna was being quiet and she didn't know that Anna only spoke English. Fortunately she would give the instructions in both languages.

Meredith enjoying the snow.

Jane

Tired at lunch!

Day 2 - getting out the door.

At Moar Gut, our families had an assigned table that was ours the whole time. We had a lot of fun and good memories at this table this year with the LaBrache family.

Meredith and Anna - Day 2

Meredith, Jane, Regan and Sophia

Anna and Carter with Fabien

Jane enjoying the snow and making a snow angel after a fall

Carter on the rope tow lift

Look how comfortable Anna looks on the button lift - even waving to me as I go by

Carter, Fabien and Anna after their lesson. Carter and Anna made huge improvements after this private lesson and were ready to go ski with us.

Tired gang waiting on the bus at the end of the day

Anna's first "real" chairlift! She was a bit nervous that day but got the hang of it confidently the next day.

Where we found Jake and Cam one day (at the bottom of the kids' run) - "supervising"

Anna

At Moar Gut, Gusti the chicken shows up an hour into dinner after the kids have eaten. Even Regan and Sophia (both 12) happily jumped up to go do the chicken dance downstairs with Gusti and the other kids. They made several friends this year (last year it was almost all German speakers). This year there were a couple of Australian families who live in Europe now and a British family.

Here comes Jane! I took a lot of sledding photos - mainly because they were so exuberant and it was way easier for me to take pictures since I wasn't trying to ski, too. The sledding hill seemed to be a bit pile of snow trucked in and smoothed out by a snow groomer - you can see how there isn't any natural snow down in the valley by our hotel (just at higher altitude at the ski hill)

Meredith. It's starting to get dark as we came out after skiing one day. Well, the kids came out and went sledding several days and I only made it out to take photos this one time.

Maya

Jane racing down the steep/ icy/ fast part

You'd get going so fast that it would catapult you off into the grass and you'd go for quite a while

Regan

I went sledding, too, but no photos of me barreling down the ice and across the grass

Look at that happy face!

Anna absolutely loved her first foray into sledding

Gorgeous color filled sunset ski while we were sledding

Meredith

Jake in the sledding race, too

View of our hotel from the sledding hill

Our sledders

Cuddle time with one of the cats

Kitchen party! Musicians, appetizers and a guest/ staff party in the kitchen one night

On our hike to town along a beautiful stream

Chickens on our stroll

Snow/ ice balls from the cross country trail

Charming Grossarl (town that is a 30 minute walk from our hotel). Last year we enjoyed the wonderful Christmas market but we missed the memo that it was only on the weekend so we accidentally missed it this year. It's a sleepy little village without the Christmas market.

Our whole family is skiing together now! No one is left behind in ski school

Another family photo spot. Meredith was holding my poles and as we broke up, I drifted down the small slope...

...and kept drifting... right into this man. I didn't want to shove him, so I ended up giving him a HUG! He didn't move a muscle and his wife looked at me like, "What is this lady doing??" *Lucky* for me, Erin had my camera and memorialized my embarrassment.

Now I can barely hold myself together and he still never cracked a smile or moved aside. His wife finally almost smiled. I'm just so happy that I had an audience for this!! Other funny moments (that didn't get captured on film were when Regan and Carter (separately) didn't manage to get off the ski lift before it circled around. So happy for ski lift operators who were both paying close attention and were able to rescue them both.

Anna decided that ski lifts are okay afterall

The Moar Gut Christmas show. Up on stage is the family who owns the hotel (they have four kids, too!) and the staff of the hotel. This year they did the show in 70% German and 30% English. Last year it was 100% German which shows the change in guests this year - lots more non-Germans this year.

Christmas gifts for the girls - they called all of the kids up by family to get a gift. Most of the other kids were *in* the show but our kids opted out and preferred to play and not have to do a rehearsal in German.

So we couldn't quite get the details, but it seems that in Austria, Santa sends an angel to give out the gifts. No Santa - just an angel.

We did a gift exchange with the LaBrache clan - time to open gifts

Our tree that the hotel put up for us in our little suite. The girls made all of these ornaments! I brought a few beads/ tinsel

Jane made the star topper out of paper! All the girls made such great ornaments to make our little tree festive.

Anna made the little snowman on the tree

Maya and her mom with the ornament we gave them - all the little marshmallows have a name of the Puryear and LaBrache kids so they will always remember the Christmas we spent together in Moar Gut.