Winter Wonderland: December in Switzerland

---

We had a busy month! We had a visit from a good friend from Texas, and took in the Holiday festivities in Lausanne. Emma arrived the first week in December. We strolled Lausanne, visited the Olympic museum gardens and took a crazy day trip to the Mountains in an attempt to ski.
Lausanne is beautiful at Christmas time...full of traditional decorations and good cheer. They had wonderful festivities throughout the city the whole month of December, including numerous visits from "Pere Noel and his charming ass" (a translation on the community website..hee-hee). The plaza near our house, St. Francois had free pony rides around the square every Sunday, as well as a beautiful Christmas village with hot wine and trinkets from around the world.
We took a day trip to the little ski village of Overonnaz, Switzerland...by crow fly, probably only about 1 hour away, but by public transportation, it took quite a bit longer. It was 2 trains and a crazy, crazy alpine bus. In Lausanne, the weather was rainy and about 50 degrees, in Ovronnaz...it was a blizzard. The bus ride to the top took about 1/2 hour on switchback, cliffside roads...It was nerve racking on the way up, but heart attack evoking on the way down (after a whole afternoon of the temperature dropping and piles of snow).
Once at the top, we decided it was too much to try to ski, so we spent the afternoon playing in the snow and sitting in the fabulous thermal baths. The Les Bains D'Ovronnaz was incredible! With 3 piping hot thermal pools with massaging jets, it was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. The baths went outside, so it was very surreal to have the snow hitting your face and head, while the rest of your body was in warm, bubbly water. The girls loved it. They would run out and hop in the snowbank and then jump back in the hot pool (I know, poor parenting, but no one got sick)
On the 20th, we hopped on a plane to spend the Holidays in the hot tourist destination, Cataract, Wisconsin with family!

---

Photos

Pere Noel and his ass
hee-hee

Abby and Bella
window shopping

Emma
Emma standing under the high jump at the Olympic museum

Sumo wrestler
Abby imitating art at the Olympic museum

Lake Geneva
view from lake front in Lausanne

snow covered swiss chalets
It is amazing the change in landscape, just an hour by train

fondue
Bella and her first swiss fondue

first snowmen
Our girls with their first snowmen (EVER)..Bella's looks a bit like the little guy from Monsters, Inc.

winter wonderland
playland outside of the thermal baths in Ovronnaz...back in Lausanne, it was 50 degrees

winter wonderland
Overonnaz