Snow!

Today the forecast was perfect for a snow trip!  It was Naomi’s first visit to the snow.

We made snow angels…

went sledding…

ate icicles like candy…

went exploring…

and enjoyed being together.

p.s.  The scenery was beautiful.

Effie Yeaw Nature Center

Today, Jared, Esther & I went to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center (hike #4 in 60 Hikes in 60 Miles).  It is in Fair Oaks on the American River.  I haven’t been since I was a kid.  I could tell the Visitors Center had been updated.  We all really liked it there!

First, we enjoyed the Maidu Indian displays, both indoors and out.  The displays showed how they lived and ate.  There was plenty of hands-on stuff in the Visitor’s Center.  The kids spent quite a while playing “fisher” and “gatherer”.  I think its funny that they naturally chose the “correct” roles. lol  And I found a lot of the info interesting.  Did you know the Maidu did “gopher jumping”?  Especially when the ground was wet, they would jump onto a gopher hole, and the animals would all come out running.  They could catch 10-12 in one swipe.  Sounds fun! 

 

Inside, we saw a lot of native river animals, both living and stuffed.

 

Finally, we went outside to the trails!  There are several small trails that cross-over and overlap each other.  Some go out to the woods, meadows and pond, and others take you to the river.

 

I was excited when we saw some deer!  Ends up, we saw plenty while we were on the inner trails.

 

We even saw some with antlers.

 

The kids’ favorite part was when our last trail took us to the bank of the American River.  They threw rocks in the water and had a great time!

 

 

We want to go back in the spring when there will be pretty flowers in the meadows.  We’ll bring Dad with us that time. 

Snow Day 2010

I just realized that I hadn’t posted photos of the snow trip we had a few weeks ago.  My sister, Debi, came with us with her great dane, Chloe.  She also brought sweet, little Lola, who she was dog-sitting. 

We went up to Wrights Lake Rd, and decided that we probably hadn’t needed to go up that far.  There was almost too much snow.  And it was very powdery, so it was hard to make good snowballs, or a snowman.  Still, we all had fun.  We plan on going up to the snow again this month.

 

Museum Day

Last Saturday we went to Sacramento’s annual Museum Day.  Dozens of muesuems are free all day once a year.

I didn’t get great pictures at the first couple places we visited.  I think I had the camera on the wrong setting, plus the lighting was low.

We started out at the Railroad Muesum in Old Sac.  We all enjoyed it, especially the train cars that we could walk through.  (Expect the Sleeper Car that moves a little and made Debi sick.  The rest of us thought it was pretty cool though.  Tom had “sea legs” for a little while afterward.  lol)

Can you tell they’re about to get run over by this enormous train?:

 

Then we went over to the Discovery Museum.  It was ridiculously crowded!  Grandma & Uncle Ben waited in line over an hour for us before we got there.  Workers were telling people that it was an 1-1/2 to 2 hour wait to get in.  But they had a deal going on where you could buy a 1/2 yr membership to the museum for 1/2 the cost.  Normally, they only offer a full year membership.  I bought one for our family, and by doing so, we all got to skip the line. 

Because it was so darn crowded, and they weren’t running their Planetarium shows that day, we didn’t stay long.  But Jared really enjoyed all the dinosaur exhibits and we saw some cute live animals, including a friendly fish that kept playing games with Esther’s finger.

 

 Since there was still time before the museums closed, Debi talked us into going over to the Aerospace Museum, which was nearby.  I’m so glad she did!  The museum was really fun and interesting for all of us.  It was an Open Cockpit Day, so the kids got to sit inside a lot of the planes.  Awesome!

 Esther taking a picture of Debi in a fighter plane:

Her little face barely peaks over the side of the Blue Angels plane:

Esther playing photographer again:

In a kid version of a Thunderbird:

Jared was very serious and excited about getting inside each of the planes.  We could hardly hold him back.  He just wanted to jump in!

a trip to the Capitol

Last week, to take advantage of this nice sunny break in the storms, I took the kids on a “field trip”.  Looking through a book my mom gave Tom for Christmas, “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Sacramento” (great book!!), I found the “hike” around Capitol Park.  My kids had never been to the capitol and were excited to go (especially Esther).

After eating a picnic lunch on a bench outside the capitol, we went inside and took a tour.  The tours start every hour and are free.  It was pretty interesting, too.

 

After the tour, we paid for more parking time, then explored Capitol Park.  It is full of memorials and hundreds of trees and other plants from around the world.

 

It was nice to get out of the house for the day.  It also felt good to teach the kids about our history and society with things they can see and touch.