We enrolled them from Monday through Friday in a ski school which lasted for 2.5 hours every morning, which gave Marco and I a chance to hit the slopes for a short while. The kids were divided into various classes depending on their level, and ours were obviously at the beginner level. They were given yellow vests to wear with their names on them to signify their class. There were about 30 kids in the class, with 3 teachers...quite a group. La Thuile is popular with the British for ski vacations, so the majority of the kids were English, which Colin and Lucia really enjoyed. They had a special kids area at the bottom of the slopes, and the group stayed there for the first 3 days, practicing "snow-plowing" down a little hill, with the help of a "moving walkway" to take them up back up again. Afterwards Colin would talk about how he wasn't able to snowplow "at ALL, Mom" and that he fell "every 2 seconds". But, being Colin, he had a smile on his face as he said this, and was always happy to go back. Lucia was not quite as excited in the beginning and the first couple of days I had a tough time getting her to release her death grip on my leg and go off with the other children. Usually she was fine until, inevitably, one of the other kids would start crying and screaming "Mommy", and then I would look down and the big tears would start rolling down her cheeks. But by the 3rd day, she was okay.
On the 4th day, they took the children on 2 chairlifts up the mountain, and did some skiing on the beginner slopes at the top of the mountain. Colin was so excited to go up the chairlifts, even though I had no idea how 3 teachers were going to manage 30 children on chairlifts that seat only 4 people at a time. I decided it was better not to dwell on that. When I spoke with the teacher at the beginning of the day, he had said that they were headed for the ski school at the top of the mountain for hot chocolate. When we met the children at 12:30, Lucia immediately marched up to me to report that the hot chocolate had never arrived. Obviously these instructors did not understand that when you promise Lucia chocolate, you'd better deliver!Friday was the last day, and I spent 20 minutes watching the kids doing their thing, and I have to say, I was impressed. Neither Colin nor Lucia fell on any of the 4 descents down the little slope that I saw. Colin didn't look like he was 100% in control of his snowplow, but he is getting there. Lucia on the other hand, made sure that she took the path of least resistance down the slope, going off to one side that was not as steep and meandering slowly down.
But it wasn't all hard work, we spent a couple of afternoons sledding, to give our tired leg muscles a rest.As for Lucia's hot chocolate, right down the street from the house we stayed in there was the most amazing chocolate shop I have ever been in. We stopped in a couple of times for hot chocolate, the Italian version, which is literally melted chocolate, thick as mud, that you have to spoon in your mouth rather than drink, truly one of my favorite parts of winter, and this shop did it up right. On the last afternoon, we stopped in for a chocolate fondue that was heavenly.
We had a great time with our friends from London as well. Nessan and Dervla are always wonderful about playing with our children, who adore them. It always amazes me that 2 teenagers aren't completely disgusted at the idea of playing with 2 little kids, but they seem to enjoy it, and it gives Mom and Dad a little break at the end of the day.
All in all, we had a wonderful little vacation, and the kids are already looking forward to going back next year.
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