If you have to turn 40, do it on a beach

I have a rule about "round" birthdays.

They must be celebrated on a beach.

For 30, Adam took me to an amazing resort in Greece. And apparently every decade, we move to Europe. So when we made the decision to move to Liechtenstein, I told Adam he better start planning since he only had 7 months to find a beach in a double landlocked country. He came up with exactly zero beaches in Liechtenstein, so he expanded his scope and found one in ... Switzerland ? Confused? Me too. Switzerland is still landlocked.

Read on.

As with all things, Adam planned my birthday as a surprise. I was told to wake up, shower and prepare to enjoy the day. 

So I did. 

We started with breakfast and opening my gifts from the girls. A fun set of Olive wood personal sized charcuterie boards, a little throw back to my 30th birthday in Greece. I have a feeling they may have had help with selecting and purchasing this as 1) they have no money & 2) They weren't exactly alive yet 10 years ago.

This was my favorite part of breakfast!

After breakfast, Adam told us we had 20 minutes to get dressed then we were heading out on our adventure.

We started heading south. The scenery was beautiful. About an hour in to the drive, the fall colors appeared before us.

It was absolutely gorgeous. These photos (mostly taken out of the car window on my phone) do not do it justice.

As much as I dislike snow and love all the things sandy, sunny and flat, the mountains in the fall are becoming a close second for an okay with me vacation.  And when I say we drove through the mountains, we really drove through the mountains.

My ears popped just thinking about all the elevation changes!

We drove for about another hour and Adam announce we were nearing our exit. As I still didn't know where we were going, I had no option but to trust him on this assessment. I did notice however that all the street signs had switched from German to Italian. When he did pull off the highway, we were in beautiful Locarno, Switzerland. Just on the border of entering Italy. The only thing between us and Italy was a lake. And where there's a lake, there's A BEACH!

Standing in Switzerland looking across Lago Maggiore at Italy

It was about 50*, I wasn't about to get in the water, but I did sneak my shoes off to put my feet in the sand for a few minutes :)

Also, in a magic trick even he didn't realize he'd performed, Adam found a beach with a playground. That the proverbial Italian kiss of perfection right there!

After getting all our wiggles out and collecting enough sand in everyone's shoes to fill a green turtle or two, we headed into the city for a walking tour and lunch.

Olivia: I'm done with walking tours and photos, let's discuss lunch options.

I SAID 'NO MORE PHOTOS.' LUNCH PEOPLE! LUNCH!

So we ate lunch. 

We arrived back home and Adam had one more surprise up his sleeve. He invited a few of our favorite friends over to celebrate with lemon pound cake. Truly the best end to a perfect birthday.

Edit: But WAIT! theres more. The following morning, I got some artwork from Charlotte. She wanted to capture our new family photo...complete with everyone's updated ages 🤣🤣🤣

Adam's In-laws' visit

My parents came to visit us. And by “us”, we all know I mean the grandchildren.

Adam & I both had a pretty intense work period in October and Charlotte was off school for two weeks so we hired some babysitters to come play with her while we worked. From the looks of the pictures below, everyone involved was totally okay with this plan.

We started our visit with a weekend tour of the local pumpkin patch. This fun tourist farm is a nice place to visit all year round, with lovely views, good food and seasonal events like their pumpkin festival and Christmas market. In the fall, they have elaborate pumpkin sculptures, an apple tree maze, and delicious harvest inspired food like pumpkin soup.

The pumpkin sculpture theme this year was “Fire”.

They also have a contest of who can grow the largest pumpkin. At just under 500kg (1,100lbs) this one was the winner.

I’m glad I didn’t have to carry it!

Perhaps the kids favorite part was the hay bale maze / bounce house. I’ll be finding hay in the car for the next two years.

After plucking as much hay as we could off the children, we ventured to the local chocolate factory.

Charlotte and my dad have always had a special relationship and I’m pretty sure everyone with 100 miles of him has had to look through his “Grandparent Brag Book” at least once. When Olivia was born a friend had asked me if I thought my dad would have a similar relationship with Olivia. From the looks of it, yes, she has also wormed her way into his heart…

I’m not sure if there was any chocolate left in the fountain when the Spencer / Powell tour concluded.

We also got to visit the Zeppelin Museum in Germany. The museum houses a huge collection of all things airship travel from its rustic beginning to the not quite as rustic present. A super cool highlight of the museum is the 100 foot partial reconstruction of the LZ 129 Hindenburg which you can climb in. The blogs I’d read said the museum would take 2-3 hours to visit. My Dad would have stayed 8-10, my kids would have appreciated about 45 minutes. I guess between us we hit the average…

When we hit our limit in the exhibit hall, we went to have a snack in the cafe while the Grandparents carried on in the museum.

When we reunited we found the Zeppelin playground. Is this really a good idea?

The rest of our time was spent generally near our house. Reading & snuggling with the grandparents, trying on our new clothes that Grandmommy made us, and helping Granddaddy nap.

Just before they had to leave, we got to show them a few of our favorite hiking spots…and llamas.

Tschüss. Bis bald, Oma und Opa.