To Sacramento – And Beyond!

Hey everyone! Here is the promised post about our trip to California. 🙂

So we decided to take a little trip to California. We’ve been there before, but we wanted to go to San Francisco, which was new for us. I was soooo excited. I absolutely love traveling. That is one thing that I will do no matter what. Yes, it can be stressful at times, but the fun and sightseeing far out ways the negative parts.

We left on Wednesday night after Daddy got home from work. We were out by six PM amazingly. Normally it takes forever to pack the car. Everyone is always forgetting something and dashing back inside to grab it.

We ate sandwiches and cheese puffs on the drive. It wasn’t terribly long. Three-ish hours to Elko, Nevada. Baruch, in honor of being in the state of evil, decided that he would gamble with candy. He, Nahum and Yoveil had a blast “gambling” for candy and gum.

Baruch: this is great!! I love gambling!!! We should do this every day!!

We spent the night in a hotel. (The water really tasted awful). Yoveil had fun putting temporary tattoos on her hands and Tiny’s. XD

The next morning we got up early(ish) and headed towards Sacramento, California. We stopped by the store to grab a massive pack of donuts which everyone happily devoured during the long, long drive. We listened to Adventures in Odyssey and I read The Count of Monte Cristo and listened to Dovid whine and wail about his dreadful lack of candy.

We had all, unfortunately, picked up a cold right before we left. So the van was filled with lots of sniffling and nose blowing in between emotional outbursts. Dovid had lots and lots of bursts. XD He cried at literally every tiny thing. *shakes head*

We stopped in Reno and walked around a bit. Baruch, who was very eager to get to our destination, threw a huge fit about it. He was somewhat soothed by the scones that we split, though. (We like to eat, if you hadn’t noticed…)

We got to Sacramento and headed for the California Museum. We spent a couple hours there. It was a quiet day near closing so we were pretty much the only people there. Baruch wasn’t pleased to see that the first exhibit was dedicated to women and all of the wonderful things that they had done. *nods* He kept walking around with a look of disgust on his face.

After the museum, we stopped by our favorite store – Trader Joes. Baruch (Mr. Food Lover) convinced my parents to buy a bunch of orange chicken and fried rice to be devoured at our airbnb. (Mama was extremely happy to see that they had a gas stove instead of the evil electric one we have at our house).

While we ate our food, we watched our (new favorite) show Survivor. (Anyone else here like it?) When it was finished, I curled up in bed to spend forever dreading the job interviews that I’d have to do when we got back home. XD I slept great – punctuated only by waking up a few times in the night to stare at the ceiling and worry about the future. XD

Day Three of vacation started with us piling sleepily into the van and heading for San Francisco. An hour and a half down the road we were stopped.

We have had two vans that have loved to destroy vacation plans by breaking down at the worst possible times. We affectionately say that it is a vacation tradition to have to stop for some sort of unexpected repairs upon our oh-so-reliable vehicle.

This trip was no different.

It wasn’t too long before we were back on the road, thankfully and had resumed our trip. I read and we listened to more AIO.

When we got there, we headed straight for the Japanese gardens. They were lovely! Dovid enjoyed the bridges – especially because he could walk over them himself and feel like such a big boy. 😉

After we left there, we headed to Japan Town. That was cool. We spent an hour or two walking around there. Sampling food (of course!) and looking in shops (and getting more candy…hey, vacations are time to indulge in all of the unhealthy but so delicious foods….).

Then we walked around a little food hall. I love food halls. It is so fun to walk around and look at all the different foods and things for sale. This particular one even had a whole section dedicated to mushrooms. We split some bread and then walked to China Town.

We spent a few hours walking around there. Up and down hills. Splitting more foods. Most of them were really good, but I have to say that I wasn’t a fan of the chicken feet…Dovid loved them, though, and kept begging for more. XD

Our last stop was Little Italy. Baruch was very tired and his feet hurt by that time. He kept up a constant stream of complaints.

“This place stinks. It’s San Franstinktown! I’m tired. Are we almost done?”

He perked up when we stopped by a bakery and split some canolis. He was even more excited when we stopped by a gelato place, but his hopes were dashed when he realized that eight people were splitting two small(ish) bowls…and that he would have to share a spoon with Nahum. XD He (and Nahum) were much relieved when Daddy came to the rescue with extra spoons.

We got back to the van and everyone was tired and hungry (all of the walking made the food irrelevant). We started driving and the Van Plague returned. All the way back to the airbnb, poor Daddy was struggling against the van. Thankfully, we made it back – just barely. We all relaxed with sandwiches and the movie Up.

Day Four. We planned to spend the whole day looking around Sacramento. We started the day by visiting a farmer’s market. I love markets and festivals. The people, the food, all of the adorable dogs, the music. It’s all great. We spent an hour or so just walking around and looking at various things. We got some amazing fruit as well as delicious mint. *licks lips*

We headed to Old Sacramento. It was…really cool. It had such a fun, festive, old feel! We walked around there (in the very hot, very boiling sun) for hours. Baruch was very pleased to see that there were numerous candy stores along the way. We got some taffy. I made the mistake of trying the maple bacon flavor which tasted just like soy sauce. *gags* We visited a museum there, but certain people were rather too hot, hungry and thirsty to see much of what the place contained.

We got some very late lunch at In-n-Out burger. Fries are delicious.

Then it was off to an art museum (much to Baruch’s dismay). They were near closing when we got there, so we didn’t get to see much. But man, there were so many lovely paintings there!! Not all the ugly (pardon me) modern stuff, but actually beautiful works of art.

Our last stop of the day was the rose gardens near the museum. They were very crowded with people getting prom pictures taken. Baruch and I had fun talking about how uncomfortable all of the dresses looked. XD And how he would NEVER EVER want to wear anything so shiny or sparkly. XD

We got some pizza and ice cream from Costco and settled in for more Survivor episodes.

Day Five. The last day of vacation had come and I was not looking forward to going home (especially to face my dreaded interviews). We got donuts for breakfast and spent hours and hours driving towards Utah and listening to AIO. And reading. I’d brought along a bunch of birth books that I was planning on making good progress on but instead didn’t open them and re-read Red Rock Mysteries. XD Plans fail sadly….

We stopped at a little park half way through the drive. I took advantage of the time to walk around in circles…for over an hour…but hey, at least I kept my 2+ month exercising streak going. XD It was boiling hot and the sun had no pity on me.

We had some sandwiches for supper. Got home just before 12 AM. I was happy to see my glider babies again, but not at all happy to be back home.

---

That was our lovely little vacation! We got to see a lot, try a lot of different foods and make awesome family memories together. ❤

~Hattush

Have you been to Sacramento? San Francisco? Favorite vacation memories?