The beginning of April we had some wonderful visitors! My parents, sister Jenny and niece Brianna. They were a blast and we got to do some fun things while they were here. All of the kiddos just loved them. They called Brianna "Aunt Brianna" even though she is their cousin. :)
Here's pics from their time with us.
Grandma snuggling with Noah and Kira.
Isak and Jenny snuggling.
This is my beautiful fun niece Brianna.
The kids just got their love buckets filled with all of the attention. Here's Grandpa pushing Kira while we grilled some food.
Our first big adventure was on Monday April 10. We loaded the van and my Dad's car and drove to San Jose.
Here's Me, Sofie and Grandpa just about to leave.
We decided to go to the Winchester Mystery House. We made it there about 10:30 and our tour began at 11:10.
My dad carried Sofie in the carrier and Jenny carried Noah in the carrier because no strollers were allowed in the house...photography wasn't allowed inside either.
I carried Noah when Jenny got tired. :) Cute little smile huh?!
The house was crazy! Here's a few things about it.
Sarah Winchester inherited $20 million dollars from the Winchester Rifle company of her husband's business. She also received $1,000/day for her life. Her daughter died at 6 weeks old. After her husband died she felt like the ghosts of the lives that were taken by the Winchester Rifles were haunting her. A physic told her to build and keep building and this would keep the ghosts away and she would live as long as she was building. So for 38 years there was 24 hours/7 days a week construction work on this mansion.
No blueprints were used. She received the days instructions in a seance room. It was a weird, maze, haunting house. Here are a few odd things...She was 4'10" so some of the doors were that height. She also had arthritis and could only lift her legs up 2-3 inches. So the stairs were only 2-3 inches high as well.
Crazy things....
- 7 zigzags, 44 stairs to go 9 ft high.
- staircase that ended at a wall.
- window on the floor.
- door to nowhere
- cupboards and doors that opened to walls
- a door opened and if you walked through it you would fall two stories to the kitchen sink.
- She loved the number 13 and Daisies.
- The perfect daisy has 13 petals. There were daises painted and carved in many places.
- 7 miles of pipes.
- $3,000 front doors the no one walks though.
- $1.75/sqft for flooring.
- workers were paid $3/day for 40 workers--average pay at that time was $1.50
- She was inventive and found solutions to problems.
Below you can see a second story door that opens to nothing....
It was fun to walk though and learn about her life and the house. Isak and Kira were pretty good.
Afterwards we ate lunch at Jack in the Box and then drove to Santa Cruz Beach.
We spent about an hour there.
We drove along cliff drive and then ate dinner at Burger.
Fun day exploring together.
