A snowy New Year

As I mentioned in my previous post I was recently on holidays in Austria for the New Year. Austria is a place close to my heart and we usually make a trip there at least once a year. This year of course, was our first trip skiing with a baby.

J is 6 months old now and getting a little bit more independent. In the last two weeks he has mastered sitting up by himself which has been a godsend. He is happy to sit and play with his toys for a little while so I can at least have time to pee or to make an attempt to clean the house. It's got so bad, we've been thinking of getting a cleaner, despite me being at home all day. Ridiculous, no?

This worked in our favour while we were away, as he would sit for a while happily and let us chill out on the couch next to him. Up until now he has been a very clingy baby who needs a lot of entertainment. Another bonus of this new found independence is that he is more than happy to be left with my parents and let us have some baby free time. So, this made for a lovely break. We had two full days skiing, just the two of us while my parents watched J as well as some extra help in the mornings so we could have a lie-on after being up with him at night. It's been a bit of a shock being home and being responsible myself for J most of the time again.

Austria is just fantastic (yes, I am a fangirl!). It was a week of skiing, eating, drinking and lounging around.

New Year's Eve I walked into the nearest town with my Mum and J and we met Mr HNW, my Dad and brother who had been skiing for the day. I'm happy to report our buggy (an uppababy vista) was well able for snow and even a bit of ice. J was perfectly snug in his snow suit but didn't seem too impressed by snow.

The town put on a torchlit parade at 5pm, involving all the local ski instructors skiing down the mountain with lit torches in procession. Even though it was -6C we all bundled up with J to watch it.

Fireworks on a ski slope were pretty spectacular.The last photo was taken moments before I had a pretty bad fall, luckily not while wheeling J. We were walking down a slope to get home and I slipped on a patch of ice and hit my head quite hard. My parents insisted I get it seen to so a New Years Eve trip to the emergency room was in order. Luckily, I only had a mild concussion and we were in and out of the hospital in about 2 hours but it meant no sipping of sparkling wine at midnight for me. I had been skiing the previous day wearing a helmet so I felt pretty stupid that I had hit my head while walking.

Apart from all the skiing and eating we managed day trips into Salzburg and Munich.  Salzburg has a lovely little outdoor market, where once again I gorged myself, in this photo on a donut pretzel. This is the photo I need to look at when I start to fall off the food wagon, I've posted it for inspiration. The New Year diet really does need to start now!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year, wherever you spent it.

N
xx