Willardson Tales

So we drove down to San Diego for New Years to be with family and friends. The sky ahead shows a nice break in San Diego from the pouring rain we just experienced in Los Angeles. But even though it rained in San Diego a little after we got there--we had fun with WiiU.

Wonderful day and wonderful things to look at at Balboa Park.

Even a magician.

Spent New Years at Sea World with Alan and Allison. Got greeted by Shamu right away.

All the animals love to have their pictures taken.

They even had snow at Sea World!

Its still Christmas on New Years--so nice. Especially since this trip was our extended Christmas vacation.

Wonderful view on top of the stadium watching the interesting dolphin show. But the dolphins were great.

Always a fun time hanging out with the flamingos.

And of course feeding the animals was very fun. They love to try anything to get people's attention for a fish.

If the birds didn't have an eternal scowl they might get some fish. But they will always be hated at feeding time.

Only the cute, deserving animals get fish. This one did extra tricks in the water for fish.

Always a good time at Sea World. Rachel's first time was a good one--not too crowded and lots of enjoyment.

New Year's Eve party with friends and family. Always a good time.

For a nice video of the animals at Sea World go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-Jb835x_0

So we made it to Lake Tahoe and met up with the family. It was thundery when we got there Monday, but the weather was great the rest of the time we were there--and of course lots of smiles all around.

Day 1 -- we decided to scope out the area and see what we could find. Didn't take long to enjoy the lake.

The water was very clear and pretty cold. Some of us ventured into the water the first day, but we decided to heed the cold water sign and just put our feet in it. But the rocks were pretty killer on the feet--guess we just have sensitive city feet.

And of course there were a lot of these little guys around. They either loved to pose for the camera or they wanted a tip. I think we took several dozens shots.

Couldn't keep from having fun at the beach.

And if the beach somehow got a little boring, one could just turn around to river wilderness awesomeness. Always something pretty to look at in Tahoe.

So the next part of our trip took us to Emerald Bay. We decided not to go down to the beach but to soak up the views up above.

First day and we are all having a blast! Check!

We decided to be a little adventurous and check out the waterfall. Kind of blazed our own little trail to get there.

On top of the world!

Some of the trees were very cool.

So we went to another beach on day two, but someone else has those pictures. So once we get those pictures we will post them.

On day three we said our good-byes and split from the group. After stopping at In-n-Out for some lunch, we checked into our hotel and had a little extra time to go to the Sacramento Temple, which was very beautiful!

Day 4 -- Sacramento

Capitol building was our first stop after breakfast. Sacramento is such a pleasant city--especially downtown. Having lots of trees really livens up the place.

So basically everything inside and out of the capitol building is immensely detailed and is full of images and carvings (this is taken from the state seal). For example this piece of artwork is on the ground right outside the bathrooms--if the bathrooms have this much detail around it, the rest of the place must be awesome, right? Yes!

The assembly room where the assembly men and woman meet and vote on laws. This is also called the house of representatives.

So much detail on everything. The tour guide lady told us that the building was started around the same time that Abraham Lincoln was President. Even though they had to renovate the building in 1970 to support the building better with cement and steel, everything is still as it was when it was originally built. The chairs down there are originals. There was one guy in charge of making all of those desks in both the Senate and Assembly rooms (along with the chairs where the public sat). It took him 9 years to carve all of those desks and chairs.

This is the Senate Room. The Senate room is red and the Assembly room is green to copy the House of Commons and Lords from England. House of Commons is green and House of Lords is red--which is royalty color.

The great seal of California is everywhere. I bet there is a game to see if someone can find all of them because there must be at least 100 images of the seal.

The detail is incredible. This is right below the dome and is above every entrance into a hallway.

This little guy is also above every hallway. (If you can't tell what it is it's supposed to be a bear.) I like how it has a pink mouth and all the other statues are gold.

The ground in this hallway is a mosaic and depicts the state flower, the golden poppy. When they renovated the building the contractors had to take a picture of the hallway, remove all of the little pieces, and then put it back together again like a puzzle. It took nearly 3 years to put back.

The stairways in the capitol were my favorit part. They were just so big and so detailed and had cool paintings to look at going up or down.

Oh bear--always has a place just about everywhere in the building. This happens to be a carving of a bear on the doors leading out to the balcony on the second floor.