Family Field Trip

The Friday of spring break we took a family field trip to Sacramento in honor of Ben's fourth grade social studies curriculum. Ben and I have been reading about California History for homework for the last few months. I'm so glad that he felt so excited about actually going to see some of the places we've been reading about.

First stop, Sutter's Fort.

After walking around to all the rooms, Ben and Ethan decided they would want to be blacksmiths and Eliza decided she'd be a baker. Blake just follows everybody everywhere.

Of course we had to stop at the shop and browse and resist the pleading to "please, just let me buy something!"

And of course we had to take a family picture:

We walked next door to the Indian Museum next, where a scavenger hunt turned boring into engaging.

Then to Old Sacramento - lunch at the Harvey House. The service was terrible (turns out they'd only been open for three days - forgiven!), but the family history lesson was significant - Jeff's great-grandfather met his 2nd wife, Marie, at the Harvey House where she worked as a waitress in the 1920s. Yup. Got that?

We walked down the cobblestone streets and visited an old store and the old schoolhouse. Oh we also passed the train station where old engines and railcars were parked in the engine shed. Blake's face looked astonished to find (for the first time) that trains are actually real and very very big. The kids loved doing school the old fashioned way.

It was an excellent day to step back in time. We hope to visit Columbia - a California Gold Rush town - this summer. Stay tuned :)