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Tuesday 19 April 2011

Our first family holiday, part 2

Now where did I get to? Ah yes, boarding the plane at Gatwick. Elizabeth was pretty good on her first plane flight. I managed to get her to sleep and feed, then she slept on the coach transfer to the ski resort as well. It was quite uncomfortable for me but I was still pretty tense at this point.

When we finally arrived at our hotel, we had a bit of faffing, as you always do, before we could have some dinner. We eventually managed to get Elizabeth to sleep is this unfamiliar cot, in the unfamiliar room with unfamiliar sights and sounds. Frans and I were very impressed with how Elizabeth handled everything. We had a normal night despite the changes.

The following morning Frans and I hit the slopes! What an interesting experience that was.... We knew that there hadn't been a lot of snow in the Alps for most of the season and especially in the 5 weeks leading up to our trip. Unfortunately Alpe d'Huez was no exception. Frans and I walked down a muddy slope to the nearest chair lift, about 100m from our hotel. The chair lift took us over grassy slopes, up to a nice icy mountain. That was rather interesting. So we set off in the opposite direction to everyone else so that we would end up over the other side of the ski area. I really wish we hadn't.

Please remember that this was my first time skiing for a year and my first stab at any sort of exercise since having Elizabeth. So off we went, down a blue run. Nice and wide, easy I suppose. No. I panicked, of course. I couldn't see, it was really icy and there was no way that was a blue run! It was impossible to turn and my husband was becoming increasingly agitated with me. I eventually managed to get down the short slope (after much encouragement and the promise of a cuddle) and I was ready to head back. I was vaguely aware that I was leaving my baby girl and I was pretty sure she was missing me. Apparently she was having a wonderful time with Nanny and Gramps. Who would've guessed?!  Frans and I did persevere and my confidence slowly came back to me. We actually had a good first day.

We had decided that we would try and stick to Elizabeth's evening routine as much as possible so we gave her a little wash and a bottle before putting her to bed. We then left her and went down to dinner, taking our baby monitor with us. It worked perfectly! Elizabeth slept really well, waking after 5 hours then sleeping for another 6.5! That was unusual but I was happy to get some much needed rest.

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