Dinner Plain alpine village, Victoria, Australia

Just imagine an alpine high plain within 6 hours' drive from Melbourne. Snow Gum tree-lined tracks covered with 1 metre of fresh powder snow, unlike any ordinary snowscape elsewhere on Earth. That was our dream come true last week when we decided to do a winter ski holiday up on Dinner Plain, Victoria high country with Calvin, who's currently studying design & architecture in Melbourne's RMIT.

Daryl, our second son took a week off work (in insurance/financial planning) to bond with us in the snow. We had mandatory snowball fights, snowman & snow sculptures while Theresa was game enough to join the 2 brothers in learning how to ski, further up on Mt Hotham.

Renting our 3 nights' accommodation in a cosy chalet house at Peppers Rundells Alpine Lodge was value-for-money. It came with a wood-burning fireplace, full-fledged kitchen, washer & dryer, plus ample room and privacy for everyone. We even had snow shovelling equipment, reminiscent of our first white Christmas, 20 over years ago in Boston.

Mount Hotham, Australia

In life, we can plot and plan for success but there's always serendipity and a silver lining behind every dark cloud (pun intended!). Booking the hotel 6 months ahead was the easy part. However guaranteeing snow is really 90% serendipity. As luck would have it, a powerful blizzard piled on the best snow for Mt Hotham in decades.

We were initially complacent about booking ski lessons ahead of time, so when Dinner Plain's schedule was completely sold-out, we decided to hop on the 10-minute bus up the mountain and check out private beginners' class at Hotham Central.

So the silver lining was a special private session for the boys while Mum joined in for no extra charge! Our ski instructor, Jarrad, was ever-patient with us first-timers and at the end of 4 hours' coaching, each boy was confident enough to take to the higher slopes via chairlift.