Museum Day - Feb 08

Every Winter, Sacramento has a Museum Day, where all the Museums around town are free. (There were over 25 this year)

 

We picked three to go to this year, and we timed it to miss the crowds! It was a drizzly overcast and cool day, but that didn't stop the Gwilliam's!

 

We went to the Governors Mansion first,  and even though it was a very big house, and had all the comforts of the day, our kids thought our house was better to live in!

President Ronald Reagan lived here when he was Governor of California also. It kinda looks like the 'Adams Family' house!

 

We then went to the "California Museum" which is only a year or so old and was actually started by Maria Shriver (wife of Gov. Schwartzenagger). It is a HUGE museum with lots of exhibits and the kids liked going through it.

 

We then headed over to the AeroSpace Museum of California.

There were lots and lots of planes to look at, old and new. And since it was Museum Day, they had a lot of planes that were open that we could go in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home, we of course had to stop at Leatherby's and get our fill of ice cream!

Happy Birthday Hannah!

 

February 4 we celebrated Hannah's 6th Birthday!

 

She was so excited to have it finally be here! She was counting down the days!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah was very surprised to see she got a new bike for her birthday!

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

Just one problem though - she didn't know how to ride a bike without training wheels! But she was VERY determined to learn and even started in the house!

 

 

 

 

Hannah has a very nice big sister (Meghan) who helped her learn how to ride the bike in ONE AFTERNOON!

 

Her Dad and  Mom said it wasn't possible!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But here she is riding it all by herself and so proud and happy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah also got some jewelry making kit which she was totally thrilled with as well!

 

Later that night, Hannah picked the activity which was bowling, which she came in 2nd place! Here she is resting and saving her energy for all those strikes!

Our family tradition for birthdays is right before bed, the birthday person gets in a crawling position, and everyone else lines up with their legs spread apart. The birthday person then crawls as fast as they can, through everyone's legs. At the same time, the person they are crawling under is giving them birthday spankings!  So it's in the birthday persons best interest to crawl faster, but usually the person they are crawling under, also moves with the crawler.

The end result, is LOTS of birthday spankings, and lots of laughter!

State Capital and LetterBoxing

It was such nice weather today that we decided to venture out and explore downtown Sacramento. We went on a free tour of the State Capital which was very interesting.




We never knew so little about a building we see all the time! Extremely symbolic, this building has quite a history!








Everything inside stands for something - from the green carpet in the Assembly to the red carpet in the Senate. The green and red carpet are taken from the House of Lords and House of Commons in England.

There is even a symbolic King and Queen's chair in the Senate!









The flying seahorses on the lights represent California being near the coast, and close to the soaring mountains.






The staircases all have hand carved
woodwork, such as the photo here which
shows the head of the California Grizzley Bear
which portrays strength.








After our tour, we went to Old Sac and found some LetterBoxes and enjoyed the 60 degree sunny day in the middle of January!

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