Happy November! I hope autumn is treating you well. In August I was lucky to spend my birthday in Austria. Another year older, another country to explore!

For my 35th birthday I really wanted to add another country to my collection. I had my heart set on Paris but when that wasn’t coming together I started looking at more local options. I priced out trips to Corsica, Budapest, and Prague but those weren’t flowing either. Finally I landed on Austria. I found an adorable cabin, and fun things to do for our whole family.

The day of my birthday I got a new tattoo and we drove to country number 20!

Side note: My tattoo is 2 of my mixed media paintings. A rose, poppies, and a turquoise stone. I played around with the images on my iPad in Procreate until I found a design I loved. Months later, I still love it and everything it means to me.

Ok, back to Austria. This country is beautiful! Huge mountains, valleys, rivers, and adorable towns. We all enjoyed the trip very much. The highlight for all of us was mining for garnets at Granatium. We also visited Abenteuer Affenberg aka “Monkey Mountain” where we learned about a troop of 150+ macaque monkeys that live in the forest mountains. We enjoyed lunch at Cafe Restaurant Christine Kunz. You walk up a giant hill into a castle and sit at the castle wall with an amazing panoramic view of the valley. In Gmünd, My husband enjoyed the Porsche Museum and I enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the open artists studios.

On our last morning I was able to squeeze in a little painting. The view from our room wasn’t the best but I was still able to find a little slice of beauty. I feel like I was able to capture the feeling of fresh mountain air, summer ski slopes, and mountains as far as the eye can see. Plein air watercolor painting is my favorite.