The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

I have posted all of the photos from our trip to Chamonix and even have a video of Cullen snowboarding, including one face plant. Don’t let the photos fool you, the skiing was terrible. One day we got to one of the ski areas (there are about 5 or 6) and it was raining so hard and so windy at the top that the woman selling tickets told us that skiing that day was a bad idea. When it didn’t rain, we had either ice, really thick wet snow, or just hard crud. At least we had some great sun at times so we could see the Alps, which are certainly impressive.

The next ski trip will probably be in Austria or Switzerland and we will stay at someplace that allows us to ski-in and ski-out. In Chamonix you have to rely on the city bus or a taxi to get from town to the ski areas and back.

I also have short a video from inside the gondola as it starts to descend from the Aiguille Du Midi peak at Mont-Blanc, which is very is steep.  

You can take a gondola ride from Chamonix up to Aiguille Du Midi, which is a peak on part of Mont Blanc. Lorie and I got lucky on Wednesday with good weather and went up to check it out. The observation areas at the top are built in the rock and the size of the mountain (mountains?) is just massive and very impressive. 

       

Dinner in Chamonix

We had great weather, but needed new snow. It was OK at the very top (3725 meters), but icy below that. The Chamonix are consists of about five ski ares, I think. We skied at Domaine Des Grands Montets. A few photos:          

Today (Saturday, Jan 13), Lorie and I went to the Tate Modern with a couple of friends. Our intention was to ride the big long slides that they have installed, but we would have had to wait for over 3 hours. So instead, we walked around and saw all the art, which I suppose is the point of going to a museum.  

 

After a couple of hours at the museum, we did the normal London thing and went to a pub for drinks and an early dinner.

And just for the heck of it, here is a photo of our house and our little Mercedes (Lorie’s really) in front of the house. Yes, we can park in front of our house!

In London, I have still only driven a few blocks, and riden my bicycle a few miles. But, when I was in Redmond dor a couple of days last week, I really had to think about which side of the road to drive on. After sitting in Seattle traffic though, I have decided that I only want to live someplace where I don’t need a car – public transportation, walking, and bicycles are the only way to go!

Our friends Keith and Lisl are moving back to Seattle from Winter Park and might be in for a shock at the traffic.

Next week I promise to post some photos from Chamonix, France.

You can take a little quiz at http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/ to find out which superhero you are. We took it and got:

Brian: The Flash – Fast, athletic, and flirtatious.

Lorie: Spider Man – Intelligent, witty, a bit geeky, and has great power and responsibility.

I took some time between Christmas and New Years to install the latest versions of Windows and Office: Windows Vista and Office 2007. So far, my laptop runs much better on Vista than it did on XP, and the new version of Office is great if you live in Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook like I do.

You can even download trial versions of Office 2007 if you want to try it at home.

Since London is pretty quite on Christmas day, I took the opportunity to take a bike ride through the relatively quite streets of London. The best part was riding over the Tower Bridge – it’s massive, especially from a bicycle seat. The picture of me is from today (Christmas 2006) and the others are ones I found on the web.

 

Near the park where Milo plays is a community garden, when I have always called a p-patch, but I’m not sure what they’re called in the UK. This one is pretty big, as you can tell by the satalite photo.