Mom's California Visit, Part 4: Sacramento Zoo, Old Sacramento, Sacramento History Museum

On Saturday, June 27, Mom and I started our morning with brunch at Willow, the hotel restaurant. I ordered the lemon ricotta pancake, not expecting that it would be the size of a birthday cake instead of a pancake. It was incredible. I had to get a box to save half of it, despite giving Mom a generous slice to try. Mom's french toast was fantastic, too. 

Our first destination was the Sacramento Zoo. I've been there many times, most recently with Trevor in 2024. This was Mom's first visit. 

  

  

I love capybaras. The Sac Zoo has four babies and they're as cute as can be. 

I was surprised to see alligators in the area that formerly house flamingos. It turns out that they moved the flamingos due to the risk of them contracting avian flu from wild birds. 

Red pandas on the left, Himalayan monals on the right. Fun fact: The animators from the Pixar move "Up" used these very birds at the Sacramento Zoo as inspiration when designing the character of Kevin. 

  

Okapis. 

We had a wonderful time at the Sacramento Zoo. Next stop: Old Sacramento! This pedestrian path takes you under I-5 and pops right out in the heart of Old Sac. 

Old Sacramento sits on the bank of the American River and is packed with shops, restaurants, and attractions. There are 85 historic buildings, 32 of which are original. It's a fun place to visit. 

Mom has been to Old Sacramento before (decades ago) and I've been there at least 50 times, but I planned an activity that neither of us had done: the Underground Tour. We invited Jonna to join us; she's never taken the tour either. I'm happy to report that it was fantastic! The tour is given by a costumed guide playing a real-life character from the Gold Rush era in Sacramento. Our guide was James L. L. F. Warren, who became known as The Father of California Agriculture. 

Warren was a botanist from Boston who came to Sacramento and opened The New England Seed Store. He sold trees, seeds, and agricultural tools to miners. His store became a hub for agricultural knowledge and innovation. The store also hosted the first California State Fair. Among his many other contributions, Warren introduced camellias to Sacramento, now known as the Camellia Capital of the World. 

Approximately 2/3 of the Underground Tour takes place underground. It's really cool. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed underground, but you can find videos on the Sacramento History Museum Facebook page. 

  

The tour includes admission to the Sacramento History Museum, where the tour starts and ends. It's packed with interesting information about the history of our capital city. 

After we saw everything at the Sacramento History Museum, we had a delicious dinner at Bear & Crown. 

After a very fun and full day, we headed back to The Exchange. We had one final activity the next day before Mom flew home. I'll tell you about that tomorrow. 

Puzzle Party!

To celebrate my 54th birthday back in March, I threw myself a jigsaw puzzle party. It was awesome. I printed the photos right away, but I'd been waiting to scrap them until I could get my hands on puzzle patterned paper. As soon as it showed up, I made this page. 

Puzzle Party (affiliate link)

I've been doing modern scrapbooking for 25+ years and this is the first time EVER that I used up all of the letter Zs on a sticker sheet before running out of any other letter! Using one Z is really rare for me and running out of them - ever, let alone first! - is unheard of. Like most people, I tend to run out of the vowels and letters like S, T, and R. Anyway, that was a fun first for me. 

New Year's Eve 2025

We usually host a small get-together for New Year's Eve, but Trevor and I were flying home from Boise that evening. So instead of having friends over to our house, we asked them to meet us at Dos Coyotes near the airport for a non-traditional New Year's Eve dinner. The food was excellent and it was great fun to end the year with some of our very favorite people. 

Celebrate NYE (affiliate link)

I'm frustrated with how the metallic stickers scanned. In real life, the gold is shiny and you can barely see the clear part of the sticker. On the scan, it's the opposite. Oh well. The layout is complete. It's in the album and up on the blog. Mission complete!

SIX: The Musical

Have you seen SIX: The Musical? It tells the story of Henry VIII's six wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived) with a decidedly modern Girl Power vibe. The music and the costumes are fantastic and it's such a fun show! Missouri Street Theatre did the Teen Edition of SIX in December and it was spectacular. 

SIX: The Musical (affiliate link)

MST had a neat idea for a fundraiser - donate any amount and take a picture with the cast. I wish the teens were in the front and we were in the back so that you could see their incredible costumes, but it's still a really fun picture. The layout came together really quickly. I used the playbill for my title, then added journaling, a strip of glittery washi tape, and the crown to finish it off.

Jigsaw Puzzle Party

I threw myself a birthday party on Saturday. The theme was one of my favorite things: jigsaw puzzles!

To make my party hat, I started by coloring old puzzle pieces with Apple Barrel paint pens (affiliate links here and below). When they were dry, I coiled Twisteezwire in corresponding colors around each piece, then threaded the wire into a blue party hat. I secured the ends with masking tape. I used a Sharpie to write 54 on another puzzle piece and glued it to the front of the hat. 

Here's what the party invitation looked like. I had so much fun designing it! (I used PicMonkey, of course.)

I wore my puzzle piece necklace. It's from Springbok. I got mine for free awhile back for joining their loyalty club. I don't know that they do that anymore; probably not, since they're selling it now. 

So what do you do at a puzzle party? Puzzles, of course! We solved a neon 80's themed puzzle and a chocolate mystery puzzle. 

We made crafts using puzzle pieces. 

We played Puzzle Trivia (I'll share that tomorrow). And we played multiple rounds of Puzzle Chess. 

If you're not familiar with Puzzle Chess, I highly recommend it! We used a 48-piece puzzle; you can play with a puzzle up to about 100 pieces. Someone who is not competing completes the border and turns all the pieces face up. The contestants sit across from each other with a chess clock beside the puzzle. Start the clock, then the first player puts in a piece and hits the clock. The second player does the same. When the last piece goes in, the person with the least amount of time on their clock is the winner. It's really fun!

In between it all, we grazed. I love charcuterie boards for parties. They're so much fun to put together and everyone can grab what they like. Check out the puzzle piece candies!

I used the Celebrate It! Puzzle Piece silicone mold, sold by Michaels. I'm so frustrated that they don't sell it anymore, because it is AWESOME. As you can see, the finished candies actually interlock properly like puzzle pieces should. To make the candies, I prepared Wilton Candy Melts and added a drop of different LorAnn flavorings to each of the different colors before molding them. I didn't match the colors with the flavors logically (for example, purple was green apple), which left my guests a bit -ahem- puzzled.  

I had such a good time at the party! Thanks to my friends for helping make it so fun. If you're a jigsaw puzzle fanatic, I highly recommend throwing a puzzle-themed party of your own. 

New England and Canada Cruise, Part 8: New York City and Returning Home

This is my eighth and final post about our New England and Canada cruise aboard the Enchanted Princess. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh posts from the trip before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I received complimentary admission tickets for some of the places we visited during our trip. Other places are free for everyone; we paid full price for the rest. This has no bearing on my reviews. 

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New York City and Back Home

After a wonderful week of sailing, our cruise ended in Brooklyn on Friday, September 20. Steve, Trevor, and I were headed home that day, but our flight wasn't until 7:00 pm. (Jonna was staying for an extra two days of sightseeing.) If you've ever been on a cruise, you know that disembarkation happens really early on the final day. It's not like a hotel, where check-out is at 11:00 am or noon. On a cruise ship, disembarkation typically starts at 7:00 am and ends as quickly as they can get several thousand people to shuffle ashore. And unlike a hotel, you can't store your luggage on the ship while you go sightseeing all day. Fortunately, most cruises offer a post-cruise shore excursion that fills the gap between the early morning disembarkation and a late afternoon or evening flight. 

As soon as we got off the ship, we loaded our luggage into a bus and began a 7-hour tour of New York City. Our guide was outstanding, keeping us informed and entertained every minute as we made our way to Manhattan and to Battery Park City. 

From there, we made our way on foot to the 9/11 Memorial. It is a powerful tribute to the thousands of innocent people who lost their lives on that terrible day.  

  

Each day, a white rose is placed next to the victims born on that day. Christopher Hanley was 9 days short of his 35th birthday when he died on the 106th floor of the North Tower. He would have turned 59 the day we visited. 

It was inspiring to see the Survivor Tree and the dozens of messages of love, peace, remembrance, and hope. 

We walked through the Memorial Glade, but unfortunately did not visit the Museum. Someday. We also saw The Sphere and One World Trade Center (the Freedom Tower). 

  

Next, we went to the FDNY Memorial Wall. It is dedicated to the 343 members of the New York City Fire Department who died on 9/11. 

  

We walked to Zuccotti Park, where we had time to get coffee (no thanks) or just look around. 

  

We re-boarded the bus and headed toward Rockefeller Center. Along the way, we learned about all sorts of interesting sites. Unfortunately, the bus had a wrap on it and taking decent pictures was completely impossible. That was annoying.  

Once we got to Rockefeller Center, we had an hour to do whatever we wanted. 

Our top priority was getting lunch. We ended up at 5 Acres, under 30 Rock. It was fantastic. 

After lunch, we had a few minutes watching people shop at CJ Hendry's Flower Market. The flowers were all stunning and it was so fun seeing the different bouquets that people put together. 

As we left Rockefeller Center, our guide was on Google Maps, trying to decide how to show us as many sights as possible while avoiding the streets that were closed in preparation for the parade the following day. Our driver was an absolute rock star, driving us safely and confidently as the guide called out changes from the planned route. We saw a lot more of the city, but didn't make any more stops until we reached the airport at 2:30. And with no acceptable photos from the bus, I don't have anything more to share from our tour. 

At the airport, we said goodbye to Jonna and headed to security. Things were flowing nicely until suddenly... they weren't. It turns out some yahoo five people ahead of me tried to get through security with brass knuckles. I did my best to eavesdrop and learned that TSA has to file paperwork when that happens. 

Eventually we got through and went to our gate. Terminal A at Newark is newly redone - it is really nice (spacious, clean, and comfy) and really big. Naturally, our gate was the farthest one. Also naturally, two minutes after we sat down, there was a gate change to the opposite end of the terminal. Then 15 minutes later, there was another gate change and the plane was delayed for 2 hours. Sigh. We'd arrived at the airport at 2:30 for a 7:00 flight which didn't take off until almost 10:00 pm. We had plenty of time to answer all the trivia questions on the gate sign (a nice touch!) and view the New Jersey Hall of Fame embedded in the children's play space. 

  

  

Two hours into the flight, a woman in the row in front of us collapsed. She had almost no detectable pulse. There were three doctors on board who jumped into action. Fortunately, the plane was not full, so the flight attendants moved everyone else from the row. One doctor stayed with the woman, monitoring her. Since we were only about 31 inches behind the situation, it was impossible not to hear what was going on and to see the amount of work that the doctor did during the remaining 4 hours of flight time. I would like to thank him, and all other doctors and medical professionals, who selflessly help others in situations like these. I'm guessing he'd been planning to relax and possibly sleep on what had turned into a red-eye, but instead he worked to save a life. 

In the end, our plane landed safely in Sacramento with no additional delays. There had been talk of an emergency stop, but the doctor decided it wasn’t necessary. EMS was waiting for us on the tarmac. I'm glad the woman was in good hands and am optimistic that she is ok.