Malenovice, Czech Republic

View from our room... yes, please feel sorry for us... (ha ha)

Enjoying a cup of hot cocoa after a time of playing in the snow.

A time of rest during our winter break... we are at the Christian Retreat center in Malenovice, Czech Republic with a group from Proem.  The last few days have been quite foggy, so we can't necessarily enjoy the view of the mountains, but it's been snowing every day and we are enjoying sledding and skiing (well... the girls learning how!).  Most importantly, taking time to bask in His beautiful creation. I love the mountains... so I feel equally blessed that we have the White Mountains in NH to return to!!

the drive to the ski slopes

first ever attempt of down hill skiing for the girls... we didn't have to pay for them to learn on this particular hill!  notice kaylor gave up and decided to just play on the hill. 

Josh before going down his first ski run...

me before going down... we were actually given the ski lift pass (they have card reader machines) so I could see how I would do... loved it, and although I never fell once, I knew that it wasn't worth the risk as the slopes were pretty steep.  am thankful I got to go down at least once the whole week, though!  so thankful we didn't pay for ski passes!

our hotel... a christian conference center called KAM... the walk up was killer!

so instead of going back to the ski slopes every day, we decided to take advantage of the free slope next to the hotel and help the girls learn how to ski there!  we also went sledding and just enjoyed being outside!

lauren's just proud she made it back UP the hill!

kaylor did the most skiing as she didn't mind the fact that she had to carry her skis back up the hill herself... they just didn't get more than 3 tries done each day!!

for a few days, it was very soupy... so much you could hardly see the parking lot down below the tree line and definitely couldn't see the ski slope across to the other side!