Since I had two weeks off,
and my boyfriend, Danny, also is off from school,
we wanted to go somewhere fun,
but also somewhere that didn’t cost a lot of money.
California’s got a lot of great options,
and I’m sure we’ll explore those more as we go,
but we had our eyes set on:
The Jelly Belly Factory
and the Charles Schultz Museum 🙂
My older brother Davey has relocated to the East Bay, so we picked him up on the way for a day of fun!
The Jelly Belly factory is really cool.
One thing I really liked about it?
The samples.
You could sample any of their candies, three samples at once,
and then just GET BACK IN LINE and do it all over again.
We waited for the tour, and, of course, took selfies.
We were a bit bummed that the factory wasn’t running that day. I SWEAR I checked the website and they said they were. Yes, you still can have a tour when the factory’s not running (on the weekends and occasionally at unannounced times around the holidays apparently…) but I bet it’s cooler to see the beans in action.
The tour is free, so right in our budget, and you get/have to wear these fun hats! We couldn’t take any pictures on the tour, but got to see some Jelly Belly art up close before we headed in. Videos explained the production process and we stopped at seven or eight stations to learn about how Jelly Belly jellybeans are made. We even got free samples on the tour, and were rewarded with a little bag of Jelly Belly jellybeans on the way out.
I took this pic JUST IN CASE I ever write a story about Jelly Belly and need a picture with the hat on for my author bio. You can never be too prepared!
Things I learned on the tour:
Ronald Reagan loved jellybeans and the blueberry flavor bean was introduced JUST SO Jelly Belly could send him containers of red, white, and blue jellybeans.
The beans get checked two times in a machine, and once by a person, to see if they are the right size and color to be a Jelly Belly jellybean. The ones that aren’t get sold as Belly Flops at a discounted rate.
And Jelly Belly makes lots of other things besides jellybeans! They make Sunkist Fruit Gems, which I’ve loved since a kid, and all kinds of candy corn!
After the tour we marveled at all the cool stuff you could buy, tried some fudge (there was a bacon flavor and it was great!), got a few more free samples, and hit the sale store to buy some Christmas stuff on discount and some fruit gems on discount.
Next up, IN-N-OUT, because what’s a field trip in California without it?
Our last field trip stop was the Charles Schultz museum. If you love Snoopy and the gang like we do, you’ll love this little museum! While we were there, they had an exhibit on Alice and Wonderland and how it related to Peanuts. Did you know that there was a series of strips made with Snoopy playing the “Cheshire Beagle”? That was fun.
They also had an exhibit featuring different emotional themes in the strips, where we got some good pictures.
The part about the life of Charles Schultz was amazing. He won an Emmy, did you know that? Another fascinating thing they had there was a mural that he painted for one of his children in their first home. When they moved out, the wall was painted over, but when the now owners bought the house, they heard their might be a mural under the coats of paint. Since the mural was in oil, they cleared off those top coats and found a huge mural, and the wall is now in the museum! It has some great hand lettering and early versions of Snoopy and Charlie Brown.
The replica of his study was great; I never realized the comic strips were so BIG in their original form. They have a video there that’s Charles speaking about his work.
Outside is the sculpture garden, with great photo opportunities. We liked the kite-eating tree the best 🙂
Since it was New Year’s Eve, they were having a balloon drop and root bear toast, so we got to see that. Snoopy and Woodstock showed up as well. Finally, on the way out of the museum we took the labyrinth challenge. A labyrinth designed in the shape of Snoopy’s head is made of bushes that are about a foot and a half high, so really the challenge is not to step over them to make it go faster. Anyway, we succeeded and tried a new challenge: Ice skating.
Here’s the guys, lacing up!
Charles Schultz loved ice skating and hockey and when the rink he went to in Santa Rosa had to be closed due to structural repairs, he built a new one! Snoopy’s Home Ice is an ice skating rink right across the parking lot from the museum and also houses The Warm Puppy Cafe, where you can get assorted snacks and hot drinks.
None of us had ever skated before, which is weird because we all grew up in Northern NY! We rented the skates and waited patiently for the zamboni to finish before hitting the ice!
I have to say, it was REALLY fun!
Also, sort of terrifying.
There were A LOT of people there, including many kids,
so it wasn’t the best time to learn.
I rollerbladed A LOT as a kid and just used those skills and ended up not being that bad. It also helps that I’m low to the ground. Davey and Danny did ok too, though having all the kids around made Danny nervous; he was afraid one would fall in front of him and he wouldn’t know how to stop! One kid actually DID fall in front of him and he just barely got out of the way, but it sort of spooked him and he got off the ice before Davey and I did.
Davey tried to do a figure skating lift. It didn’t happen but this picture did, so it was worth it 🙂
All the skates together!
I LOVE SCOTT HAMILTON! I may have yelled out, “SCOTT HAMILTON!” so loud that it scared people walking by. Maybe.
With all that excitement,
I was glad that we had a relatively tame New Year’s Eve planned.
Our plan?
Get some frozen pizzas and sparkling cider and head back to my brother’s place to play board, card, and dice games.
Danny is a HUGE fan of games,
I love playing them as well,
and Davey is REALLY good at them.
We hadn’t seen Davey in a while so thought it would be a fun way to celebrate and stay awake until midnight.
Our original goal was to try to play 14 different games before midnight, and then a 15th on New Year’s Day.
Unrelated: Davey just moved into his place and is still unpacking. This is the DEFINITION of a capsule wardrobe: One shirt.
We started around 7:00 and played our little hearts out!
I documented it all in my sketchbook of course 🙂
Small breaks were taken around 9 p.m. to call all of our east coast relations. We had fun “time traveling” to the New Year by calling them, then got back to it.
We finished up our tenth game a little after one, and hopped back into the car for the hour drive to Santa Cruz. Thought we didn’t make our goal, we still had one hell of a fun day and evening.
Games played and winners:
Scrabble Slam card game = Davey
Touring card Game = Davey
Loonacy card game = Danny two times, Davey one time.
Skip Bo = Davey
Phase 10 Dice = Davey
Farkle = Kathy Ellen (finally!)
Wizard = Davey (but only by 30 points!)
Yahtzee Hands Down card game = Davey
Five Crowns = Kathy Ellen
Smash Up = Davey
I know that may not be a lot of people’s number one choice for a New Year’s celebration, but I’m happy we could spend it with my brother. He is looking to move to Arizona soon, so we are trying to spend as much time with him as we can.
Whew!
Sort of makes me tired talking about it!
I hope you all had a fun New Year’s Eve!
KE
I knew about Ronald Reagan’s love of jelly beans. In fact, when he was in office, my sister and I did a jelly bean jigsaw puzzle. We used some mod podge to seal it and mailed it off to the White House. We received a thank you note in return.
Do you know about Cheap Ass Games? The idea is that the cost of board games is mostly in the printing and pieces. So they print everything on cardboard, and you reuse money, dice, and game pieces. They have some pretty funny fun games. Most all of them have some seriously silly back stories.