Christmas Vacation

 How did over 2 months go by since my last entry.  Didn't even see the last 2 months go by actually.  We had a really nice Christmas -- Christmas Eve was at our house with my parent-in-laws.  We went to late mass -- it was a beautiful and lively service, which was a nice change -- lots of singing and music.  Christmas day was at my brother-in-law's new house.  Unfortunately for their first Christmas, the twins got nasty colds and we pretty miserable -- poor guys :(  Fun, food and family basically sums up the day.  I sneaked back home to try calling and skyping.  Unfortuanetly I couldn't get any lines out to England, but I did catch a lot of my family on skype and it was fun seeing everyone.

The next morning w left early to head to the Pyrennees mountains in the south of France.  I was a 5 hour drive -- the girls did well since they have lots of new toys to play with and new dvd's to watch.  We stayed for a week and it was so nice to get away from everything.  The weather was amazing -- lots of sun, not too cold and we actually picnic-ed in the snow almost everyday.  I actually didn't bring my camera with me much, I usually just had my little video camera with me that also takes pictures, but I haven't downloaded them yet since I still need to charge the battery.  So we went sledding, visited the little mountain towns, went cross country skiing, checked out the look English pub and Alison, Teddy and I went for a 3 and a half hour snowshoe hike.  We enjoyed the area so much that we book the same little appartement for next year at the same time but only for 5 days we can get back for new year's.  One of my Christmas present was paragliding, which I have always wanted to do.  It was just so amzing gliding over the mountains, seeing the snow capped peaks and the lakes was just undescribable.  Since I do need to get ready for work I will leave you so pictures I just downloaded..

The snowman we made the first day

Leïla loved the snow -- last time we went to the mountains in the winter she was 2 and didn't get to enjoy it much

Sisterly love -- resting up after sledding for hours

And then they went back at it

A beautiful waterfall near the "pont d'espagne" -- the bridge to Spain

A tired Alison after the snowshoe hike

At the summet on our hike

Same

 Catch out the sunburn -- it was so sunny that day and it was really warm