Skiing the Alps

First, let's celebrate the fact that I'm writing this post in the SAME month we took this trip! Hooray! Off to a great start this year! *applaud* Thanks!

This is our first family adventure of the year ... a ski holiday in Kaprun, Austria. It was somewhat of a last-minute trip. On the 1st of Jan we said, "Hey! Let's take a family ski trip together!" and teamed up with our friends, the Wagner's for a family ski trip to Austria. We spent the next week researching family-friendly ski locations and hotels and settled on Hotel Rudolfshof Vitality in Kaprun. Two weeks later, we were there! The hotel is a family-run hotel that included full-board (breakfast, lunch, late-afternoon snack, and dinner) plus a free Kids Club run by a great team of girls that had experience as "au-pairs". We enjoyed great food, drinks, great company, the adult sauna (sans kiddos), snowboarding, skiing with the kiddos ... plenty of family time balanced with quiet adult time. It was perfect. Though I must say, by the time we started to relax it was time to depart ... 4 nights/3 days isn't long enough.

Our highlight of the trip was skiing with Kelty for the first time. He's 4, and as most 4-years olds are ... he's fearless! From 9:30 - 11:30 on our first two days, Kelty enjoyed ski school while Al and I brushed up on our snowboarding skills with an instructor. After our schools, we hopped back to the hotel for lunch then back to the bunny slopes for an afternoon of skiing with Kelty until 4:30. Then we'd hit the late-afternoon snack at the hotel followed by some time in the Kids Club for Kelty and sauna/spa time for the adults. After some downtime we'd hit the pool with Kelty and then rendevous with the Wagner's for dinner. By the second night, we had found our groove and let the kids eat first at dinner then drop them off at the Kids Club while the adults finished their dinner and drinks at a more leisurely pace. :)

Daddy and Kelty on the bunny slopes.

By the second day, Kelty was riding the bunny lift by himself. It was awesome to watch him ... so confident, so fearless, and so happy!

Taking a breather with Daddy ...

... and a breather with mommy.

Kelty, done with ski school. Is there anything cuter than toddlers on ski's?

Al and I were able to hit the larger slopes on Kitzeinhorn Glacier ... the view was stunning. We decided to use our snowblades versus snowboards because truthfully, I was tired of falling. :)

We hit the Ice Bar on the glacier. It's an igloo!

We took a break enjoyed a gluhwein.

The last photo of our time on the slopes ... a group shot with the Wagner's. As always, we had a fantastic time together! We were the last family on the slopes this day ... you know what was nice ... we could actually just ski right down to our hotel. Let's get one more "awesome" in this post.

Norway ... In A Nutshell

A long time ago .....

One of our big vacations this summer (ahem, yes I'm THAT far behind) was to Norway! After a lot of discussion about traveling through Norway versus basing our travels out of one location ... we settled on basing our adventures out of Flam, which is nestled in the innermost part of the Aurlandsfjord. We don't regret that decision for a moment! This trip was the perfect balance between relaxation and exploration ... it's exactly what we needed.

In a nutshell. 1) Norway is the most picturesque place I have EVER seen ... I will run the risk of sounding like a complete dork and tell you that the scenery and its enormity pretty much moved me to tears. Really ... it's THAT amazing. 2) Norway is the MOST expensive place we have traveled. Whoa! To offset the cost of the trip, we knew we'd be packing our lunches and skimping on meals ... I swear, it's 3 months post-Norway and I still cannot stomach a peanut butter sandwich. Thankfully our hotel stay included breakfast ... we completely gorged ourselves every morning, packed a PB sandwich for our lunch and bought the cheapest food we could find for dinner. How expensive could it be? Converting the currency to U.S. dollar ... a personal pizza was $50 - $65, a bowl of soup was $18 - $22, a hamburger was $30+ ... and we're not talking sit-down restaurants! I'm talking little quick-service establishments! 3) Did I mention Norway is simply breathtaking?

So. We flew into Oslo late on a Friday night, picked up our rental car, and drove about an hour out of Oslo to our first hotel. The next morning we hopped on the road to drive to our destination, Flam. We based all of our activities out of Flam, a tiny little village that happens to be a cruise ship destination. Each morning we enjoyed watching a new cruise ship dock and each afternoon after the ship left and we enjoyed the peace and view of the fjords. It's as if we had the village to ourselves. It was perfect ....

A view through the fjords towards Flam ...

Grass roofs ...

Loved this. Red homes and buildings were pretty popular, it was completely stunning amongst all of the green. This little roof even had a clump of trees growing on top ...

We stopped frequently along the route between Oslo and Flam to capture photos. We had all the time we needed ....

Kelty absolutely loved Norway. In fact, he still calls it "my Norway" and has requested to go back. We spent all of our time outdoors ... I can see why he loved it!

Flam! Busy during the day and quiet in the evenings ...

Flam is home to the "Flamsbana" (Flam Railway). Every day we watched the train depart for a trip that is claimed to be the most beautiful in the world ...

A view of our accomodations, Flamsbrygga Hotel. I sat on the deck every morning, afternoon, and evening while sipping coffee. Perfect ...

Look at the reflection!

Our first day we took a boat trip up the Naeroyfjord to Gudvangen. It was stunning! The waterfalls that dominate this region are spectacular ...

So picturesque ...

Kelty was SO happy ...

I love this. A couple was sitting outside their home ... simply enjoying their view. The husband was "people watching" as the wife knitted.

We cruised by this beautiful piece of land ... Al and I both fell in love with it. If only we could find a piece of property like this to build our retirement home on! You can see the sheep grazing and a little boat pulled ashore (bottom right). sigh.

After we reached our destination, we explored for about an hour until we caught the bus back to Flam.

This makes me smile ...

The next day, we visited the Hopperstad Stave Church which was built in the early 1100's. Stave Churches are Norway's oldest surviving churches ... we were able to see a few throughout our trip, but this is the particular church we took the time to explore.

The wood is covered in tar ...

Ketly enjoyed everything about it ...

Later in the week we decided to hike to a nearby waterfall ...The start of our journey. You can see the waterfall waaaaayyyy in the background.

I forgot to mention that it had been raining ALL week and we were warned it was going to be a difficult and messy hike. It was!

We made it! We were completely wiped out but it was gorgeous and Kelty was so proud!

This was taken after I busted my butt ... you can see the mud and the deep imprints our shoes made. It took us a few hours to hike there and back but it was one of our most memorable family hikes.

We took an afternoon and drove the "snow road". It's a 30-mile scenic drive which eventually took us to the Stegastein viewpont. The views were breathtaking. Along the drive (and most of our driving excursions in the area) we always saw little rock towers .... Al stopped to make a contribution of his own.Stegastein Viewpont

Our last big excursion was a hike to Jostedalen Glacier. We drove to the national park (which ended up requiring us to board a ferry ... Kelty was REALLY excited to ride the "car boat").

From the car park area, we hiked about an hour to the face of the glacier. This is where I had a tough time capturing the grandeur of Norway. This was HUGE! Can you see the hikers on the glacier ... it will give you a little perspective of the size.

This is one of my favorite photos. Daddy and Kelty taking a break along our hike to the glacier ...

It's blue!

A family photo! The only one we have of the three of us!

On our last full day, we drove the tiny nearby town of Undredal ... which apparently has a population of about 75 people and 400 goats. It's also famous for a unique brown goat cheese ... which was so unique, we opted not to buy after tasting. :o)

We were a little disappointed not to run into any goats while we were walking through the town .... well, we found them all on our way out!

During our time in Flam, Kelty's favorite past time was climbing rocks ...

and that's a wrap on Norway!

A Journey for Kelty

A very special journey for Kelty ....

Immediately following our visit to Vermont for Mike's graduation from medical school, we drove to Boston for a series of medical appointments for Kelty. Some time ago, Kelty was diagnosed with Apraxia of Speech, a neurological speech disorder that affects the brain’s ability to send the proper signals to move the muscles involved in speech. Apraxia-Kids.org is a wonderful site that helps explain Apraxia of Speech, treatment options, and resources available. I really encourage you to browse through the Family Start Guide which does a wonderful job explaining Apraxia of Speech .. it's been a tremendously helpful resource for us.

Kelty started working with a speech pathologist over 2 years ago ... wow, 2 years! Over the course of these 2 years we have literally taught Kelty every sound, syllable, and word that he now has in his vocabulary ... we've taught him how to move his lips, tongue and muscles to communicate verbally. We've literally had to train Kelty to speak. We have an AMAZING speech pathologist here, truly amazing. Kelty responds so well and we've all formed a wonderful bond ... it is through all of our efforts, including Kelty, that Kelty now has a voice. But this is a long journey for Kelty and though he has made great progress ... we have a long way to go.

Kelty with his speech pathologist, Julie ... working on finding "g" and the "guh" sound.

Kelty has no other developmental delays ... and though we are truly blessed with that, the challenge is that Kelty is very smart and understands EVERYTHING! We have in a Kelty a very bright, happy, imaginative, expressive, active and social little boy that simply cannot speak what he knows! He has stories to share but cannot tell them ... he has feelings to share but cannot speak them ... he has so much to say but a voice that fights back. He loves to talk, but his speech is filled with word approximations and mostly goes misunderstood. He makes up for his speech difficulties by animating ... I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a little actor.

Several months as we were plugging along at our speech appointments, Julie had a little heart-to-heart with me. There was MORE that we needed to be doing for Kelty ... and our journey to get Kelty seen at the Center for Communication Enhancement at Children's Hospital Boston began ...

On May 23, 2011 after consults, referral paperwork, coordination with insurance ... Kelty had his 1st appointment at the Center for Communication Enhancement at Children's Hospital Boston. I'll be honest, Al and I were hoping to hear "Kelty is fine, just keep doing what you're doing and he'll be tracking normally soon" ... but it's not what we heard. Instead, they confirmed what Julie had already told us ... Kelty needed the aid of an Augmentative Communication Device. Over the course of one week, the speech pathologists worked with Kelty on various communication devices and decided the Vantage Lite would be best suited for Kelty. Of course the decision was ultimately for Al and I to decide and we are still in a state of disbelief, but it is our job to give Kelty every opportunity to speak and to be understood.

This device will essentially "give Kelty a voice" until he is able to communicate successfully on his own. He can build sentences, ask for help, ask for things he needs and share with us everything he know but cannot speak ... I am so excited to hear what Kelty has to say!

Now, we are in a state of waiting from the insurance company to decide whether or not this device will be covered. Though we've been assured that it will, does anyone have luck with their insurance company the first time around? If not ... we will make this work.

On the lighter side of things ...

In between appointments; we were able to enjoy a little of Boston with Al's parents, who were able to continue their visit with us after leaving Vermont ...

We visited the tomb of Paul Revere ...

We spent an afternoon at the Children's Museum ...

Every little boys dream ...

and this too ...

Hands-on learning ...


We ate at Cheers (that's my Bloody Mary)!


... and despite a busy schedule, we enjoyed some great family time and Kelty was able to have fun with his Mimi and Papa.