Adventures in Sacramento

Happy Thursday!! I know that I missed last week’s blog post but I have a great excuse…I was on vacation again.

I’ve mentioned before that my kids have a strange school schedule because they are on year round school. They are currently out of school and I thought that it would be fun to jump in the car and drive over 600 miles to visit my sister in-law in Sacramento.

Now, I grew up in Southern California and my kids have been to visit family in that part of the state many times. In fact, they thought that California was all about Los Angeles. But, I also went to college in northern California and wanted them to see the other half of the state.

So, we hopped in the minivan and headed west!

Twelve hours later we arrived at my sister in-law’s cute little cottage in Sacramento (yes, I said twelve hours in a car with two kids!). It was already late evening and after getting lost on the crazy freeways of the city, I was ready for bed. Unfortunately, the kids weren’t! They were excited to see their aunt and uncles (my brother in-law also lives there so it was a “two birds” kind of thing) and so I later fell onto the Aero bed exhausted!

The first day of our vacation, I was lucky enough to meet with a friend for lunch while my sister in-law took the kids to the zoo. I do love a good zoo, and my kids have been to several different ones throughout the country, and they were pretty impressed with Sacramento’s zoo. The one thing I heard the most about? The Giant Anteater! Who knew that it would be so fascinating…to hear them talk about it, I’m disappointed that I missed it.


Our northern adventure took us to my alma mater, Chico State University the next day. I wanted my kids to see what a beautiful campus it was and to have a sense of where their parents went to school. After spending over $100 at the student union on alumni gear, and grabbing lunch at Madison Bear Garden (one of the best burgers around!), all my kids wanted to know was when they could go to Target. I guess my past wasn’t all that interesting to a 7 and 8 year old.

One of the best days we had was on the third day when we went to explore Old Sacramento. We headed down in the morning with my sister in-law and the kids immediately loved the old west feel of the area. It’s set up like a town you would see in a Clint Eastwood movie with the wooden planked walkways and hitching posts. There are a variety of stores to explore with everything from kites to toys to Christmas decorations. We, of course, spent a good amount of time in one of the candy stores and walked out with a bag full of delicious salt water taffy in flavors like red licorice and raspberry lemonade – YUM!

Along with the fun of shopping, there is the Delta King riverboat to explore, as well as five different museums ranging from military museum to a railroad museum. We ran out of time to visit the California State Railroad Museum, unfortunately, because I was later informed by a friend that it is the best railroad museum in the country, and considering that I have one of those sons that knew the name of every engine from Thomas the Train, I think he would have enjoyed it immensely. We were able to get a few pictures on the train cars on display in the old depot. All in all…a really great day for the kids and myself (and I may have been inspired to write a period story set in the old west…)!

Oh, and later that day we went to one of the city parks in Sacramento that was FABULOUS!! There were two different play sets; one for little ones and one for the bigger kids. The bigger kids’ one was interactive and had some great kinetic aspects to it. The park was clean and well kept and we stayed until it got dark and I had to drag them away.

Our final day in Sacramento was spent with my sister in-law and her boyfriend at a local pumpkin patch and corn maze. With my history of getting lost in the myriad of freeways in Sacramento I let the kids lead the way in the corn maze and they did a great job. And what trip to the pumpkin patch would be complete without bringing home yet another pumpkin so we hauled two more pumpkins back across the country with us!

After another full day in the car, we finally made it home and like the best part of a good vacation…crawled into my own bed.

So that’s my excuse as to why I didn’t post last week…

Now on to the BOUNCE!!



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