That First View {Mark Warner Mum}

{Read my first post HERE and then the second HERE}

I made sure to keep the curtains open that night {and every one after}. The view from our bed, seeing the street action at night time from our window was really quite mesmerising. I loved waking up to see all of the night workers preparing the area. So much snow had fallen in the week before we arrived. So much in fact that through the week we noticed the layout of the town completely change as they were able to clear walkways and roads more. It was just a huge expanse of white, and I mean huge. We were right in the dip of the mountains and a 360° turn was just the constant image of white peaks. I remember the view becoming clear; we were almost willing it to get light so we could see just where we were, but it was a bit of a whiteout as snow continued to fall, and a lot of it. I don't think it stopped until much later in the day and it then got dark pretty quick after. Tignes' full beauty was still a secret!

Part of the pre-planning to the trip was booking ski hire through INTERSPORT. It was a great price and about a 5-10 minute walk from the hotel, so it meant that it was an easy thing to access. Monday morning at 8am, that was what we were doing. Picking up Ski hire and heading straight back to the Chalet to get the kids to ski school for 8.45. There were lots of tears. The kids dealt with it so well, but it was full on and I really felt for them as having never, even seen the amount of snow they were trying to walk in they were just totally out of it. All it took was Charlotte and Natty from the Mark Warner childcare team to sort us all out though. Thank goodness for those girls and for all the other guys who made mornings the most easy event ever. Part of a perk of MW and their childcare programme is that you literally hand your kids over and can be fully comfortable that these guys will get your kids to all the places they need to be. Once we got our kids in their gear, they walked them all down to the ski teachers and we just had to hope they would be returned back at the end of the day {which of course they were!}. All we had to do was choose what they were going to have for lunch and kiss them goodbye. Our kids were booked into a full day with childcare, but this is an option you can very much choose. For us, it was part of fully investing in the Mark Warner experience. But we weren't ready for it in all honesty. By Tuesday lunchtime Rob was ready to holiday with them, and we headed back to the hotel to pick them up early so we could go off for the afternoon with our kids while on holiday with them. Beautiful family idea right? WRONG! We had complaints from Raph and a full on tantrum from Etta who pretty much refused to leave the childcare team. Rob and I couldn't believe it, but what a compliment to these young people who were doing such a good job at entertaining our children that they didn't actually want to be with us. Bravo!

We did get out with them though once the complaining stopped and it was pretty perfect!

Tuesday was our first bright sunshine day. The first day that we realised just what we had got into and the first day that this Mark Warner holiday really came alive for us. I had pretty much spent our first ski day crying down the mountain. The seven year ski break had not worked well for me and having had 2 children since I last skiied my confidence and ability had plummeted. This however was a solvable problem. The way Tignes le lac is set up as a place pretty much meant that we could ski out of our hotel down to the main ring which then had lifts going off in two directions taking you to different runs and points on the mountains. This meant that my left turn at the bottom of the hill took me to the green, baby slopes and a blue slope which was more suitable for me. These slopes were also free so actually for most of my ski experience I didn't need a mountain pass, but by this stage that was not something I was thinking about. I took the chair lift up and worked my shaky legs down, and then went back up and down countless times, building my confidence and trying to get myself to a place where I could at least enjoy the skiing.

The sun was shining and as we stopped for lunch we sat outside, got ourselves a little après-ski and really appreciated the moment. Where we were gave us the most beautiful views of snow topped mountains and as I sat there sipping away it all became real. We were here, the kids were happy and I had every confidence the week was going to be magical.