Filoli - Fight For a Just Cause, Love Your Fellow Man, Live a Good Life

For years I have been wanting to go see a house I had been told about. I had a clipping on my bulletin board for years. I guess I had actually given up on going to see it and put it out of my mind. WELL!!!!! My sister, Rhonda, planned a secret, Christmas, day trip as a gift for Sherie and I. Last year she took us, along with my youngest grand daughter to San Francisco to see the King Tut exhibit. But, I digress..........Anyway, we start on this secret outing with a stop in Vacaville for breakfast and the conversation turned into a guessing game of "where are we going?" Are we going to S.F.? Kinda! Are we going over the Bay Bridge? Yes! But, not into the City? No, not really. Then it hit me that she was taking us to Filoli. I had forgotten that Filoli had a special Winter program for just a few days in December. What I didn't know was it also included dinner and a HUGE and I mean HUGE shopping experience in the mansion itself. I'm still smiling about this day. When we got to the historical site it was too early for our reservation so we thought a quick trip to Half Moon Bay would be fun and it was. The little town is quaint and right on the ocean. We even stopped at a gift shop/nursery and got started on the shopping thing. And, we got to even look at the ocean for awhile.

Just a side-line. On the way to Filoli (about a 2 1/2 hour or maybe 3 drive), Sherie sat in the back seat of the truck knitting. Just a note here- she was inbetween two children's car seats snd couldn't get out without us opening the door and letting her out, we had her captive. After about 2 hours of listening to Rhonda and I stepping (or maybe I should say jumping) from one soap box to another, she started cracking up laughing and said we needed to get our own radio talk show. One where we did all the talking and if anyone called in and disagreed with us we would hang up on them. I don't think there is a market for that but we did entertain Sherie.

Okay, on with the many pictures............


This is a brief story about Filoli, hope you can enlarge it and read it.














Just some pic's of the ocean, it was so calm that day, no wind blowing and the temp was very cool.

This is a tree that was growing on the road to the ocean.
We all thought it was very interesting,

This next picture is of the little info shack on the very long driveway to the house.

These trees were all over the gounds, some had bird houses hanging from them. Most of the trees had moss hanging from them. It really created a beautiful scene.

The front of the house, while we still had light. We were actually not suppose to be walking around yet, it wasn't our time. We also color out of the lines too.

The next few pictures where in the vistor's center. It was decorated so beautifully. Now, SOME say the carolers are creepy, I don't know that we even really looked that close at them. We were just having fun looking at all the decorations. And we also kinda took over the picture taking area.

The window has a garland with toy trucks on it, we thought that was very cool. If you look through the window, on the left side you can see the room with glass windows where they served dinner.

The garland and wreaths were amazing. I took alot of pictures of those.

This is still in the Vistor's Center

Oh,I forgot, we went back outside to play and take pictures.

Thought my sister would like a ride in a little red wagon. Sorry you can't see it better.

Back inside to see the wreaths and get ready for dinner.

These were all around the dining room, it was dark by this time and it was gorgeous inside the glass room having dinner.

We are done with dinner and now on our way to the mansion.

Just one more wreath to take a picture of.

There is an olive garden surrounding the house. There are lights all through it.

Walking up to the house.

By the front door.

Small fireplace.

Each of the 12 or 13 rooms, I loss count, had a different theme. With lots of pretties to buy. This one was made up as a candy store.

The dining room. There was a grand piano in the corner being played, very elegant,

There were two rooms plus for he kitchen. I would have loved to take pictures of the many stoves and ovens and kitchen things. I did get this one of the kitchen safe.

This is a little court yard we passed through to get to the carriage house where you paid for your purchases. Then it was time to leave......

Catch-Up Post

This post was to be mainly about Thanksgiving Day Dinner, complete with lots of pictures. Something happened and the pictures got deleted. All of them. We won't talk about how that happened. They were very fun pictures; imagine one of us playing Scrabble, one of the new puppy sleeping under the table, lots of the new puppy playing with us while we were playing Scrabble, a couple of Sherie checking the delicious turkey.....yep, they were good, but no one will ever see them! Tis a shame.

So, we have here an odd assortment of pictures. The first one is a painting I did for myself and I have hanging in my living room. TaDa!




The earrings are what I made Sherie for her birthday. My attempt at Chain Maille jewelry. This is a basic pattern for my first pair. I'm still practicing on different patterns and will see if I can do more.

Sherie and I have Birthdays very close together and we like to take a drive to Tahoe when the trees are changing colors for our Birthday outing. We found a darling place on a wharf to have lunch. It was a search to find it but well worth the endeavor.

The little building is where we ate.

We stayed in one of the cabins here two Christmas' ago. We stopped this time and got a coffee and just sat and enjoyed the beauty.

The following painting is one I was asked to do for a silent auction to be held in February. I hope someone buys it......

The following pictures are of my newest addition to my home. He is Green Man and was created by a friend; Jon with Carolina Carvings in South Carolina. When I saw the first Green Man he was on a beautiful gate and it was soooo cool! Recently Jon created a Green Man that could be hung on the wall for his wife. So, after some emails and pictures of wood, I got the third Green Man. He is made out of solid Rosewood and the color of the wood is dark and rich He has some character flaws, as we all do, but that just makes him more interesting. Right now he is resting on the fireplace mantle but we will be trying different places. I am very happy with him.

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Things That Make Me Smile

It shouldn't surprise me when nature gives me an expected gift. But, it does. I have always loved nature. The spectacular way it 'shows' up when I need to be reminded that the little things in life are what brings joy into our days. The sky this evening was really weird for awhile; kind of a dirty yellow tint to it because of dry clouds moving over. Then it was like a switch was thrown and the sky was filled with color. I couldn't resist going out to get a look at the sky and when I saw it I just had to take pictures. So, here they are, because their beauty made me love the moment and made me smile. And sometimes thats all I need to be happy. I'm sure I will come back to this blog many times just to look at them and remember how I felt when I saw the sky. There was a plane flying through the scene so I took a close up of it. They must have had a front row seat of the view.

The above picture is the one that had the plane in it.

Within a few minutes the sky turned yet again; into grey clouds. I didn't take pictures of that.

The following picture is just a very very small look at something else that makes me smile almost every morning. Each day I sweep all the bark back into the planting areas and by evening the birds have made a mess again. This picture doesn't do justice to what it usually looks like once they get started! But, I do have to laugh at them cuz they just look so funny and busy kicking the bark all around looking for bugs.

The other close encounters with nature I had this week was, a baby snake in my garage. He was so tiny I could have step on him and squished him. He was really trying to hiss at me. I swept him out of the garage. I hate snakes, but he was little and one of the good kind. Then there was the lizard. I really don't like lizards either, he wanted in the garage too. Then there was a frog in the garage. I like frogs but I want them in the yard........ What is up with the garage??

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