Our European Adventure: June 2024

How long can you drag out a birthday celebration?

I have a few friends who consider their birthday as a month long party. I'm not sure that I've ever mentioned this to Charlotte, but somehow she has also joined this group as she has taken her birthday to the extreme this year.

She started on the last day of school with a birthday celebration for all the kids who have summer birthdays. There was cake and Capri Sun. There was a general sugar high from it being the start of summer vacation, but she told me how special it was to finally get to celebrate her birthday at school like all the other kids.

We then had her birthday party for all her friends. Third year in Liechtenstein & third year at the "birthday party playground". I have never been so stressed leading up to the day of the party. Three days before the party, the forecast said 100% chance of rain with thunderstorms possible. It had honestly never crossed my mind to have a rain back up plan for a park birthday party at the end of June, but this spring / summer has had such odd weather I probably should have started thinking about it more than ... you know ... three days before the party.

As I'm trying to figure out if I can handle 12 children in my house and contacting every party venue in the area for last minute availability, the forecast moved the rain back mostly to the afternoon. The park has a covered pavilion area so I decided to just get there early an claim a spot and hope nobody tried to fight me for shelter.

Getting there early may have been the right decision. Bringing my own folding tables, also key to success as this was the state of the playground upon my arrival.

No, those aren't nice bricked areas under the tables, that's a lake.

Thankfully the stage area was dry and we had plenty of room to play with a roof over us.

She wanted caramel brownies for her treat this year. Odd, but easy. So we did it.

We played freeze dance. I'm not sure who won, honestly. There seemed to be a loose interpretation of the rules.

Then for the big surprise of the morning, since we we'd all planned to be slightly wet anyway, we brought water balloons.

It was an amazing party and a really fun morning. Not even exaggerating about 25 minutes after we packed up, drove home and unpacked the car the heavens opened up and it stormed for the rest of the day. I'm so grateful it held just long enough for us to celebrate. That evening after a little of the sugar wore off, she opened gifts from all her friends. What a special group of kids who came together to celebrate.

A few days later, Charlotte got to go out with Adam on a special 'Daddy / Daughter Date'. They went to an Italian restaurant then to see Inside Out 2 in the theatre (it was in English so bonus points to Dad!).

It's apple juice in the glass. We haven't gone totally European.

With this much celebrating, we finally made it to her actual birthday. We started with morning presents and cupcakes.

I had to head into the office but Adam & Charlotte came to pick me up for lunch and we got to go McDonald's. For dinner she said she wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant in Austria so we headed over there. She promptly announced (in German) to anyone within ear shot as we walked in that it was her birthday. The kind waiter put a sparkler in her strawberry slush which was the final icing on the cake for her special day.

You're probably thinking we have celebrated enough, and believe me we had. But Adam & I had one final special surprise in store. Both girls have developed a love of hiking since we've lived here and there are so many amazing kid-friendly trails. There are just a few that are great for Charlotte but would be a bit too strenuous for Olivia still. I had one in mind that I'd really wanted to do. So Adam & I took the day off while Olivia was in daycare still and the three of us went on a special hike in Golm, Austria.

You start by taking two separate cable cars up to the top of the mountain. And I mean the tippy top!

We went with her in the cable car - don't worry, she didn't climb it alone ;)

It's not foggy. We were in a cloud. Literally.

As you hike down, there are little water education / play stations along the way. Charlotte's (& Adam's) favorite was teetering back and forth on a seesaw-like contraption that filled water buckets on each side then spilled the water across the seesaw to the other side. We spent a good 10 minutes here with the two of them doing this.

We made our way down the mountain on the 2.4km path, ending with a little ropes course and playing the cow bells.

We took a little break for lunch before heading for section #2 of the trail.

Section #2 was the main reason we did this trail. It is the "Waldrutschenpark" which translates to forest slide park. There are 7 different slides to take you down the next section of the mountain. The slides vary in length from 30 to 80 m and have a total combined length of 380 m. And, from personal experience, they go quite fast. Though, in watching the video back, I am a bit embarrassed at the amount of time I lost to Charlotte by in our race.

You now say, oh that's a great family hike. You had fun and now you'll head back to the car & go home. Au contraire! There is one section to go. We now enter the mountain coaster portion of the trip. For the final 2.6km downhill, you ride a toboggan on a track. The website says you can reach speeds up to 40km/hr (25mph). Charlotte & I rode together and I guarantee you we did not hit that speed. Adam was by himself and most likely did. I have no pictures from this because I was not brave enough to attempt holding my phone while steering and braking. But believe me. It was super fun.

We have now reached the conclusion of Charlotte's birthday celebrations complete with seven different activities for the seven year old and spanning 14 days (2 x 7!).

We love you so much Blueberry!

Now for a nap.

Every continent has it's geographic wonders and one of the joys of our time here has been exploring many of them. Particularly the Alps! But we are also a stones throw from the Rhein river which remains one of the most important navigable rivers in the world. This is, in large part, thanks to the tremendous amount of water that flows down it from the Alps and the fact that it cuts through some of the most fertile and productive lands of France and Germany before it reaches the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands. But another important factor in navigability is a lack of significant changes in the slope of the river as it makes its way to the sea.

One area where this isn't the case, however is along the Swiss-German boarder near a town called Neuhausen am Rheinfall. At this point in the rivers meandering course it takes a sharp turn to the north over a hard limestone bed which has avoided erosion for more than 100 thousand years since the last great glaciation. The river then descends 75 feet just as it makes a hairpin turn west and then south as it continues it's journey on a west/southwest track to Basel before making the turn north towards the sea.

This little bit of Rhein trivia was unknown to me just a few weeks ago but then in the span of just over a week multiple people suggested to Amanda and I separately that we should go take a look while the river was at its fullest thanks to all the snow run-off. Now if just one co-worker had mentioned it I don't know that we would have been all that interested. Afterall we'd both been to Niagara and from a waterfall stats perspective it should be far more impressive then Rheinfalls. But thankfully it wasn't just one recommendation because the trip was definitely worth the time. There are fantastic views of the falls from many different angles, a boat ride that gets you right up to the base of the falls and a short walk through a cave that opens onto a platform that feels like it's going to get swamped any second by the "Most powerful waterfall in Europe" according to flow rate. But words simply don't do it justice but hopefully these photos and videos will help.