A Hike at Les Paccots

After a lazy day of opening presents and playing with toys, we all were aching to get out of the house and do a little exploring. Before Christmas break I had hoped to get the kids up to the local ski resort and get Quinn on skis, but the unseasonably warm and dry winter that we have been having put a stop to that idea.

Instead of skiing, we decided a good day hike was in order, after all the sweets we've been eating everyone needed a little fresh air and exercise!

We went up to the local family friendly ski resort Les Paccots and did a little exploring. Kevin carried Anna in the backpack, but Quinn hiked the whole time. I guess all the hilly walking around Lausanne is really paying off, because he had a great time. This kid's growing up fast.  I think the "walking" sticks he picked up along the way helped make the uphill hike a bit more fun for him. At various points we would look back to see Quinn "drilling" a tunnel or smoothing a road in the small patches of snow on our hike. This kid kills me, he has such an imagination.

We hiked to the top of one of the ski hills then walked down to a well earned outdoor fondue lunch at the bottom of the hill. As we sat down to eat, I realized that I didn't have any restaurant toys for the kids to play with while we waited for our lunch. I was a little nervous until I looked over and saw them busy counting the number of holes in their chairs! Ha, they were well occupied until lunch was served. I guess, this is one step away from our American habits of trying to constantly entertain the kids, towards the Swiss way of just letting them occupy themselves. As you can see Kevin and I didn't have any trouble occupying ourselves with the fondue!

We can't wait until it snows so we can go back to Les Paccots for some skiing!