The last day in Sarcamento

I feel like I should blog one last bit even though we are already

back home in Michigan.  But the last full day in Sacramento did include a dinner with a friend from Eureka who had moved to Sacramento.  We got to meet Alan and his girlfriend, Robin, in Davis for dinner.  I looked up restaurants and asked John and Alan to pick between Crepeville or Burgers and Brew.  They’re owned by the same people and are the number 1 and 2 rated restaurants in Davis.  You can imagine where we ended up since I let the boys pick….but before that, we hit one more playground for Oscar.  We found the one that was mentioned to have afternoon shade and I liked the picture of it on the parks site,

headed there and found a shaded paradise in this heat wave.  We got to swing, Oscar wouldn’t go down any slide until John went down with him, so John got to have some fun too.  We then met Alan and Robin for dinner and had great burgers and the best beers on tap that we’ve had all trip.  Back to the hotel where Oscar plays in his new “boat” that he’s made out of a box.  We’re packed and ready to go by 9am because Oscar woke up at 5:30am California time (he must have heard me complaining about needing to get back on east coast time) but we don’t have to be at the

airport until 12 or so and check out is at 11.  I tell John that we should just go to the airport and knock around there.  Good idea, and we get an idea of what it’s like to go first class.  We fill up the car and when we pull up at Hertz, they tell us not to unload because they’re driver will take us to the terminal in the car because we have the carseat.  Awesome, and we get a driver named Rachel which Oscar gets confused with our friend Rachel and asks, “Ray Ray?” in this confused way.  But then he says, “Rachel”, so now we know that he can.  Southwest takes our 5 checked bags at the curb, checks us in and prints our boarding

passes.  And we walk into the terminal area to watch planes take off and land from big walkways to the parking garage, ride the escalator and elevator to our heart’s content and ride the tram to security 3 times before whisking through TSA in precheck.  Awesome.  If you have a free morning and a toddler that you want to entertain, go to the Sacramento airport.  You don’t even need a boarding pass until after the tram, so you can do all this for free…..We finally get into the terminal because we do need to eat before this long day and I hit the Burgers and Brew in the terminal which also makes crepes.  Good thing they own both

because I got great beer for me and John, a delicious California crepe and a Nutella crepe with real crème for dessert for all 3 of us.  One of our best meals, days in Sacramento and we’re at the freaking airport.  We had an easy flight to Denver because Oscar crashed into my arm after takeoff and didn’t wake up again until we were landing.  He was a little off-kilter after

that and then gave us a run for our money on the plane flight to Grand Rapids.  It’s getting later and later in Michigan, but our whole plane FULL of kids are on west coast time.  So, the infants, toddlers and even above are all awake for the whole flight, but tired and cranky.  This results in John and I having to ask the stewardess to tell Oscar that he has to leave

his seat belt on, because he keeps taking it off to talk to the kids around us or go play.  While there are a few shouts of “NO!!!” and “get up!!!”, we don’t have a total meltdown or anything and neither do any of the other kids on this plane.  We get to GR so late, wait for the luggage so long, and get to our car by shuttle to the hotel at a time when John can’t even get Taco Bell drive through for a late, late dinner.  We finally make it home at about 1am and Oscar tries to say he doesn’t want to go to bed.  Well, mommy has work tomorrow morning and she’s going to bed.  He hits the blankets in his bed and loses consciousness.  John and I do the same and the alarm goes off way toooooooo early.  Vacation’s definitely over…..