The hills are alive...and 41st birthday

Okay so this post is actually close to being a month late but better late than sorry, right? Last month for my 41st, yes I said 41! I'm officially 9 years from 50! That's only 19 years from 60! *sniff* Anyhoo, for my 41st, my amazing husband planned a surprise trip to Salzburg, Austria, home of The Sound of Music. Are you kidding me??? I LOVE The Sound of Music!!  

Anyhoo, we left on Monday and spent several days walking all over Salzburg. It was amazing!

Besides all the SOM (sound of music) stuff there is so much to see there. The city is amazing and built around the river Salzach that was used to transport salt to other parts of the continent and Salzburg actually means Salt castle. Bet ya didn't know that!

Don't ask me? I don't know what the deal is with the man standing on the big golden ball. Hmmm. 

Anyhow, here's a bookoo of photos from our trip. You'll have to wait till the end of the post for the SOM photos. I'm saving the best for last!

Salzburg is amazingly beautiful. It's so pristine and it just feels like walking around a fairy tale town. 

Oh yea and Mozart is from Salzburg and was actually born in this very house!

Untersburg standing at 6,400 ft. was awesome to see. We took the cable car thinggy to the top and half way up it was covered with snow. The photo above is the back side but half way up there was snow and hopping along the ridges when mountain deer. It was amazing. 

BTW, it was so cold up there, we were defiantly not dressed for the occasion. 

Hannah also loves the SOM, she was all smiles. 

Salzburg is a distinctly Catholic city. It houses the oldest nunnery in the world! 

The city was scattered with Catholic statues and sites. The above statue was sad to see. The statue of Peter holding the crucified Jesus.  Little do they know, Peter is actually with the resurrected Jesus!!

Remember the scene when they Von Trapp family was hiding from the Nazis in the cemetery that was shown to be in the convent, well...It isn't actually in the convent, it's in this old cemetery just below the convent. 

If you notice in the above photo there are some windows about half way up in the photo, they're actually cut out of the mountain. They call them the catacombs, they really aren't since they're not underground. 

This was the photo from the above windows. 

Instead of a place to hide Christians it was a burial place for who knows who. It was very interesting to see. 

Another photo of the burial plots. love the old fence. 

When did a ton of walking and from the top of the mountain the view was amazing. Such a pretty town. 

I loved seeing it with my besties! I'm so blessed. 

I super-love this photo. I love that little house in the middle of that green pasture. I wanna live there!

I took this photo inside the castle on the hill. 

It's a lovely town and I love the discolored copper roofs. BTW, I actually had to look up the word roof  'cause roofs didn't sound right but neither did rooves. FYI, it's roofs!  

Okay now for the moment you've been waiting for with baited breathe!

The Sound of Music Tour courtesy of my 41st birthday. Birthday's aren't that bad after all. 

Johnny and Hannah in the park whene the kids sang Do Re Mi. Btw, know what's in the bag Johnny's holding?? It's CRONUTS!! Can I just take a moment to insert some opinion here? I believe with all my heart that the food we are going to eat at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will indeed me Cronuts!!!

Aren't the flowers amazing!

Why yes that is the fountain the kids danced around. So cool!

First of all, don't ask me what I was looking at, I have no idea, at least Hannah looks normal. Those are THE stairs the kids and Maria bounced up as they sang. WHAT!

The view from the stairs was amazing. That's the castle up on the hill on the other side of the river. 

Yes, my eyes are closed, dunno why. It was a long couple days!

Again, those grave plots that the scene in the movie was copied from. 

TAKE A DEEP breathe!!

 Yes that is the Von Trapp Family home! Okay not the real family but the beautiful movie family actually pushed their car out of that fence in the night trying to escape the Nazis.

Hannah loves the SOM. She was so excited. 

Now wait, we're not strange we just think it's incredibly cool to actually touch the wall that maybe Maria touched. 

FYI, this is the actual house that was used for filming the back of the house when the boat tipped over and they drank pink lemonade. They used two different locations. 

 We looked! The Von Trapp kids are gone, they weren't hanging from the trees even those these are those trees!

 We couldn't leave Salzburg without seeing THE gazebo. We didn't dance or sing like they did but we had to get a kiss in. So fun! Being a missionary in Eastern Europe has it's perks!

So my 41st birthday was amazing. I'm so thankful to have such a considerate husband and if this is what I can expect for all of my 40s birthdays, bring them on!!!