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......