Happy Birthday Elise!!! : )

Elise turned 9 years old on November 7th! Can you believe she's that old already? On Thursday night we made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (with the recipe from my good friend and Boston roommate Heidi Nelson), and took them to school for Elise's class during the day on Friday. She had a birthday party with friends from school on Friday afternoon at Füürwürch, a pottery painting shop. It was a joint party with her friend Nici (Nicol) who was also turning 9 on the very same day (and is also in her class at school). There were 13 girls there, plus Nathan, Will and Nici's older sister, Lena. The kids had a great time, and it was great for me to be able to host the party with another mom who has lived here for 12 years already! Elise had an incredible birthday cake - we ordered it from a caterer recommended by the mom of one of Elise's other friends. It was amazing, with whipped cream frosting and fresh fruit (mostly strawberries) between the layers and covering the top of the cake. There was also a horse on top, as Elise has requested! That night after taking home some of the girls from the party, we went to dinner as a family at a little Italian restaurant in our town, then came home for Elise to open presents!

The next day, Elise's birthday festivities continued with a day-trip to Liechtenstein and Maienfeld, the home of Heidi. Liechtenstein is about an hour and 15 minutes drive from us. We saw the small downtown area of the capital city, Vaduz, then went to the tourist office to have our passports stamped. It's a seamless border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein - you hardly know you've entered another country. They use the Swiss Franc and speak (Swiss) German too. It was supposed to be a 20 minute hike up to the castle where Prince Hans-Peter and Princess Marie live with their two children. However, for our family, it took almost an hour! It was a steep hike, and we don't make much forward progress without at least one kid being carried. When we were nearly at the castle, we think we saw the prince and his daughter driving by (they say you run into the royal family often - there are only 35,000 people in the entire country!). In any case, we made, it, and got a great view of the city.

After lunch in Vaduz, we were off to "Heidiland", about 20 minutes away back in Switzerland. We followed the signs (and our invaluable GPS), to Maienfeld, the site of the house that inspired Johanna Spyri to write the popular story, Heidi. We drove through the tiny, curvy streets of the town, up the hill. We then had a short walk to the house. This was the house where Heidi lived with her Grandfather. Elise knows the story well, and even brought along her book of Heidi that she had received quite a while ago from Grandma Francis. Even the boys had fun seeing some of the tools that were used at that time. The drive back home along the Walensee was beautiful - the mountains that separate Switzerland from Liechtenstein are so majestic. The leaves on the trees still have a lot of color (despite our earlier snow), and this was a clear, blue-sky day. Definitely a nice day and a fun birthday gift for Elise.