CA Weekend

We're winding down our Gold Rush studies and had a free weekend so we decided to visit a couple of historical sites from the Gold Rush days. On the drive, we listened to another Sid Fleischman book, Jim Ugly, which wasn't directly about the Gold Rush like two of his other books we've read, but was set in the same time period, and in Nevada and Northern CA--he must have really liked that time.

 First stop, Old Sacramento.

We happened to go on the weekend of a music festival, so along with the old buildings and museums, we watched a parade.

These police were walking with their paddy wagon,

and came over to give Bug a ticket.

There were a couple community marching bands, as well as some school bands. The festival took away from the Old Town feel a little, but it was fun hearing bits of music as we walked around all day. We even stopped to listen to a high school jazz band that was playing over by the Delta King.

The steamboat was beautiful and sometime, we'll have to come back and eat here, or maybe even stay overnight.

We saw the old schoolhouse.

One thing I regret from the various years we've homeschooled is that I have never organized a group to do one of the old schoolhouse field trips where the kids get to "attend" school for a day. I have always wanted to do this and I know my kids would have loved it.

At lunch time, we met up with my cousin and her family, who live just outside of Sacramento. I can't believe that I didn't get a picture with everyone at some point during the day, but I didn't.

We went to see the old store.

The hardware displays were beautiful--I wonder if the stores really looked that good when they were actually in use.

And then we went to the California State Railroad Museum. It made for a nice intro to our next social studies topic.

Only picture I got of one of my cousins kids--we had a lot of fun with them and are glad to have someone from my side of the family in the area. After the museum, we went to their house for dinner and movie night. They were also kind enough to let us crash there for the night so we could continue our explorations the next day.

Because our next stop was where it all began--Coloma, CA, site of Sutter's Mill and the first CA gold discovery.

We took the self-guided tour of all the spots around town, some recreated (like this mill), some original. The kids worked their way through the Jr. Ranger booklets and earned another badge, and we learned a few new things.

James W. Marshall pointing down to the river where he first found gold.

There were a couple blacksmiths working in the shop, one of the few buildings that was actually open for us to go in.

Peanut loved these "mustaches".

Lots of fun buildings.

I really liked this section on the different mining techniques and equipment used.

As close as they could get to riding a mine cart.

"Oh no! The mine is caving in!"

Even if we had some moments of serious whining and crankiness, it was still a good weekend. As always, history is so much more fun when we can see where it all happened.

And for me and the kids, the weekend wasn't quite over. Daddy-o had to go into work on Memorial Day, but the rest of us went with some friends to explore the newest national park--Pinnacles. I am loving showing the kids how many different types of beauty there are in CA. This felt more like southern UT, compared to the coast, or redwood forests, or the Sierra foothills we'd just spent the weekend in.

The caves we were trying to hike to were closed for the bats who live there, but we did find a few other cave type places.

And we hiked up to a small reservoir, where we found a water snake, tiny frogs, and lots of different insects. The kids started the Jr. Ranger booklets for this park, but had to finish them at home because we had to get back home to go to a cookout at another family's house.

Jam-packed weekend, but so much fun. The kids have loved that we managed to squeeze in 6 field trips in 10 days. I'm hoping to still do some local excursions during the week this summer, but our Saturdays are about to be taken over by swim meets for the next 2 months so weekend travel is over for awhile.

Date Night

One of the best things about having older kids--we get to go out on dates now! Bean is finally comfortable with babysitting for a couple hours in the evening, so we have gone out to dinner several times and the other night, we got a quick dinner at the farmer's market and then went for a short hike at Del Valle.

After years of having to pay for a babysitter, or arrange babysitting swaps, every time we wanted to go anywhere (which meant we didn't go out hardly ever), we feel liberated.

Field Trip Week Continued

Because I'm a little crazy, and we love field trips, and especially love field trips with friends, after spending the weekend in the mountains and Monday at the beach, on Tuesday, we went to the SF MOMA to see the Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibit. Both Bug and Bean had studied Matisse in first grade, so I thought this one would be especially fun. (And I ended up finding a new painting I love, pictured above.)

We enjoyed the paintings, found some fun (and some really strange--sculpture inside a bathtub of someone shaving their leg) works in other areas, and had a good time with our friends. We've gotten to know a few other homeschooling families this year which has been really nice and helped the kids not feel quite so isolated in this new place.

We haven't done enough art this year--I had all these great plans, but sadly, most haven't happened. The kids have at least made it to a couple good art museums and they do all draw a lot on their own. Maybe in the summer our schedule will be a little more open and we can fit in some more projects. But for now, we've got Gold Rush journals and field trips, swim team, and lots of math to finish up

Fitzgerald Marine Preserve

The weather didn't end up being quite as nice as originally predicted, but we took advantage of a nice day at the coast and went to explore some tide pools.

We had a lot of fun seeing how much we could identify.

Lots of anemones and snails and bryozoan and algae.

Barnacles,

limpets, 

and mussels.

Kids each picked a spot and spent over half an hour recording everything they could see. It's amazing how much is going on in each little pool when you slow down and watch closely.

After that, we climbed up the bluffs and went for a little hike.

From up there, it was easy to see the harbor seals who live in the area.

And we found a beautiful cypress forest

with views of the rocky coast. This is the California coast I grew up with--foggy, steep bluffs, rocks and cold water.

This orange stuff is actually an algae that grows on the cypress trees.

The forest almost seemed like something out of a movie.

We got to watch a crow being fed--a crow that was about the same size as his parent. I didn't realize they fed their babies when they were this big.

Another foggy view.

Where there are trees, he will climb.

At the end of the trail we came to another beach with more tide pools.

SO many snails!

These found themselves a crab to eat.

And here, we finally found a lot of anemone's wide open.

Including hundreds of little ones--so cute! 

And we found a sea star! He's hard to see, but the brown with white spots on the underside of the rock is it. 

We ended up spending 6 hours at the preserve which was way longer than I thought they would last, but I should have known. We tend to be the last group everywhere we go--I like to think it's because we're taking it all in (and not just because we're really slow at getting anywhere, which feels true sometimes, too). I love having these three adventurers to explore with.

Yosemite

We've been trying to squeeze in a trip to Yosemite all spring.  We finally made it, hoping to miss the summer crowds by going the weekend before Memorial Day (turns out everyone else had the same thoughts--it was packed!) This view of the foothills leading up to Yosemite was ours for a solid hour as we crept along toward the gate to the park with hundreds of other cars.

With all the rain we got this year, we knew it would be a great year and Daddy-o is always yearning to get back to this place that was such a huge part of his growing up.

The water did not disappoint. The Merced River was crazy.

And Yosemite Falls was at its best. Nothing like the trickle we saw 4 years ago when we were last here.

Along with the walk from where we parked, past the base of Yosemite Falls, to the museum, we also hiked up to Mirror Lake from The Majestic Hotel.

It's a couple miles, which seemed like a good distance.

These three adventurers were excited to explore.

Until this one wasn't anymore, about 1/2 a mile into it. This kid--sometimes he does okay when we have to walk places, but the majority of the time, he starts to complain way to quickly. It didn't help that he had seen ice cream at the hotel and decided he needed to have some right then, but we didn't comply.

We did bribe him with the ice cream. I asked him to do 20 more minutes--maybe a mile, if we could push him, so he could do most of the hike up to the lake. I'm trying to work on his endurance and hate to give in too quickly. Those were the most painful 20 minutes of the entire day. He wasn't supposed to whine or cry while hiking and we had some questionable moments that we chose to pretend we could hear. Bean was an amazing sister and not only hung back to walk with him, but helped him count out the last 5 minutes to distract him from all the pain and suffering he was enduring.

Ah, sweet reward #1. A ride on Daddy-o's shoulders. And the promise of ice cream when we got back down to the store in the valley.

The rest of us enjoyed the walk. We got some fun views of Half Dome along the way.

And got to watch a slack-liner up at the top. You can just barely make out the line between the point and the rock below. I can't even imagine how terrified I would be trying something like that (which I would never do because I can't stay up on a slack line that is a foot off the ground, either.)

I didn't get a picture of it, but on the way down from the lake, I pulled out the Ergo, which Peanut still fits in, and he got to ride down which made his day. Not only did he not have to walk, but with his mouth right by my ears, he also had my undivided attention for a couple miles. And he took full advantage of that time to outline his career plans. One of his jobs he wants is to have a restaurant, and he planned out his menu down to the type of paper it will be printed on, his sign for out front, who will get the supplies for these things, which parts of the actual building he will do himself (because he also wants to be a construction worker, as well as a doctor and owner of a hospital--this boy will be busy!) and what his wife will do while he is busy taking care of his parts. He was cracking me up with both the non-stop talking, and some of the words he uses. He also completely wore me out. I can still handle carrying him for miles, but listening to him talk for hours makes me tired.

Another highlight--we found dogwoods! I've been missing all the dogwood trees this spring and was so excited to see some in the park.

A few more pictures from our day surrounded by all this amazing beauty:

So glad we went exploring, even if the crowds were crazy, poor Bug got carsick on the way home and threw up, and Peanut whined more than any child ever should. There was plenty to enjoy between the less exciting parts, and these adventures will be favorite family memories, I'm sure.