Heading Home Again

And here we are at the conclusion of our California vacation.

I'm missing it already!

My parents recently went on a vacation to Santa Barbara, and while there, they went to a Spanish festival where they picked up these adorable outfits!

 

We went to church that Sunday morning where Chantel and Jacob both spoke in Sacrament meeting, and then Bryant, Ed, Chantel and Tyler sang a song in 4 different languages: Portugues, English, Tagalog and Spanish, it was beautiful! After church, we all went outside to take some family photos. Deagan was having none of it and fell asleep.

I think this is my favorite picture of Deagan and Grandma Donna! I'm having it printed out and framed to keep in his room. 

 

When we were at Donna's, Deagan didn't want anyone except her. He'd start to pout or cry and instead of running to Bryant or I, he'd head straight for Grandma!

 

We also dug out Bryant and Jacob's old Halloween costumes. My mother-in-law hand made those!

Can you guess what we will all be for Halloween this year?

 

And Deagan, trying to get in on the action.

Once again we had a great vacation! It was so fun getting to see everyone! We are planning on heading out there for Christmas this year (Let's hope there is some snow! California could sure use it!)

On to Mt. Shasta!

Part 4 of our California trip! Are you getting sick of them yet? Probably. Too bad!

First off, remember a couple of posts ago, I wrote how Deagan had been sick for a few hours and was fine by that night? Well we all got it at some point. I felt terrible on the drive from Mountain Ranch to Sacramento, and was fine that night. Bryant got it that night and was sick into the middle of the next day. And Savannah got it on our first full day in Mt. Shasta. We took her to see the new Ninja Turtles movie and she was fine. We brought her home and she vomited about 12 times, took a nap, then woke up and proclaimed that she was all better and ran off playing as if nothing had happened! It was completely crazy and I still have no idea what it was, exactly, that we all caught.

That weekend, Jacob and Sally and their kids came up for a couple of days, so we all headed out on for a day at the lake!

 

I;m not much of a tubing girl. One word: Contacts. Ugh, so annoying when you get water under those things! Not to mention, I'm a complete wuss when it comes to anything fast. So I happily sat on the boat and snuggled the kids. At one point, I had all 4. Two on each knee, and two on either side of me. Savannah and Deagan were complete angels out on the boat. You know how people buy those thunder jackets for their dogs, that are made to keep dogs calm? Well putting a life jacket on Deagan kind of has the same effect. He mostly just laid there like a slug.  

Both kids even fell asleep for a bit in my arms!

 

White leg alert!

I took both kids out, one at a time for a spin on the kayak. Kayaking is one of my favorite things! Love it!

It was a beautiful day out on the lake, and I didn't get sunburned AT ALL! Score one for the albino chick!

Sacramento!

Part 2 of our California trip!

After we spent a few days with Grandma Donna in Mountain Ranch, we headed off to Sacramento to spend a few days with Bryant's brother Jacob, his wife Sally, and their 2 kids. Bryant's brother Tyler was also staying there for a few days until his apartment opened up. We decided to hit up Old Town Sacramento and Sutter's Fort with the kids.

Just a heads up about some of my photos: In July, I accidentally left my phone out in the sprinklers. The case protected it, but got warped a bit, especially around the hole the camera lens goes through. It's bent and so unless I make an effort to pull the phone out of the case a bit, some of the photos end up having a dark corner.

 

How's that for the most Cheesy McCheeserton face you've ever seen?

I really loved exploring Sutters Fort. Maybe it's the history lover in me (it is...) but I just love stuff like this! It didn't take as long as we thought it would. We paid for 3 hours at the meter and only spent a little over an hour. The kids were champs. Deagan was asleep for the first little while, then happily sat in the stroller and just enjoyed looking around. Savannah was patient and had fun running around. She did get a little grumpy towards the end, but that was resolved when we went to Old Town to get some lunch. And the amount of photos I took was borderline ridiculous.

When we got to Old Town, we saw a Jo's Crabshack and thought that sounded good for lunch. But as we were walking over there, we noticed the restraunt next to it called the Rio Cafe, and decided to try that instead. I'm glad we did! We asked to be seated outside and we were right on the Sacramento River (And by "on" I mean "on". The patio was supported by wooden beams that ran deep into the river!) The food was good and the kids enjoyed watching the boats go by and the birds flying around. Savannah kept trying to entice the pigeons to eat out of her hand, and she would have succeeded had I not stopped her... multiple times...

 

Eating his crayon. Yuck.

After lunch, we still had an hour and a half on out meter, so we decided to walk around Old Town. I was not as impressed by Old Town as I had hoped I would be. I had kind of imagined it as an old wild west, Jackson Hole kind of place, but it was just a bunch of kitschy shops, a handful of candy stores (we saw 3 in a 1 block radius I think!) and a whole bunch of tattoo shops (I think I counted 4 or 5 in that same block.) We didn't have time to do the train museum, but I think that may have been the best part of Old Town.

We did head into one of the candy stores, but It was insanely crowded and not stroller friendly, so Savannah and I hurried through there as fast as we could. We actually ended up with a really small bag of candy, mostly tootsie rolls, a rock candy sucker and a pez and it cost us 8 bucks! I could buy a big bag of Halloween candy for 8 bucks! Sheesh!

 

We found a Zoltar! I wished to be big. (Name that movie, hahah!) And sorry that the video isn't working very well. For some reason it's looking like a GIF. Anyone know how to fix that on blogger?

Overall, even though Old Town was slightly disappointing (It ain't no Tombstone, if ya know what I mean.) We still had a lot of fun being out together as a family.