Don't teach a 4 year old to yodle...and other things I learned today

The mourning dew clung fresh to the galvanized railing of the patio and the air was crisp with a spring chill as the anticipation that comes with a child's first encounter with the mountains reached peak excitement. Since we told Charlotte that we would be moving to Central Europe we’ve tried to promote the excitement of living someplace different and getting to explore areas we’ve never been before. And as she loves going on walks, hiking in the mountains felt like a really good way to get her interested in her new surroundings. Truthfully, all it took was talking about alpine meadows and fields of pretty flowers and she was in.

So on a cool and bright Sunday morning, Charlotte and I loaded up our backpacks with snacks and water bottles and went up the mountain.

So we made our way up to Steg, a small village on the road to Malbun which we were told has a lake and some nice easy trails to walk through beautiful Alpine scenery. Upon arriving we took some pictures of the little village and then crossed over a stream of snow runoff that was roaring down the mountain! It was surprisingly loud given it’s relatively small size and Charlotte and I spent a good 15 to 20 minutes just watching and talking about the little stream and how it would travel down to larger streams in Liechtenstein before joining with the Rhein that ultimately flows into the Ocean.

We then made our way up to the lake and the dam. One of Charlotte’s favorite places to visit in Dallas is the dam at White Rock Lake so this was a good entry point to our first mountain hike.

From the dam you can look across the lake and see a very picturesque alpine field complete with yellow flowers to match our favorite sundress.

Now fully caught up in the excitement of finally seeing what she and I have been talking about for several months Charlotte was off down the path running, skipping, singing and dancing her way through the Alps. I’ve literally never seen her so excited and frankly that’s saying a LOT for our highly emotive oldest child!

Once I finally caught up with her we stopped for lunch and visited with the local swan population who have taken up residence in the lake.

Like pretty much every other kid I’ve been around, one of Charlotte’s other favorite things is to jump into puddles. Just upstream from the lake is a very shallow area that is flanked by picnic tables, fire pits where several other families were enjoying the day and braving the cold waters. As soon as Charlotte saw other families walking through the stream there was absolutely no convincing her that it was too cold to walk through so baring our feet, and maybe clenching our teeth against the bitter cold a little as well, we waded into the icy water. Charlotte would have stayed in that stream the rest of the day but after 10 minutes I could no longer feel my toes and decided it was probably best if we finished our walk and came back again in the summer for more fun in the stream.

And though she would never admit wanting to get out of the water she also didn’t fight my suggestion of putting our shoes back on so we could walk back to the car and have our mini fruit pie dessert as a reward for our first successful mountain adventure!