Sunny CA

Ragan and I went to Sacramento this weekend and left all our boys here! We had a great time and it was so hot! 107 degrees, 104, and then the last two days it was in the upper eighties and awesome! It was work related, so we spent a lot of time that was not total sight seeing and vaca...but we did
...see some famous skateboarder that has his own reality show (have no idea what his name might be)
...drive through beautiful wine country and the El Dorado Hills area that are 50 minutes on the west side of Lake Tahoe. Gorgeous.
...see the "best burger dive" restaurant that happens to be located in Sacramento, called, The Squeeze (according to "Burgers, Drive-Ins and Dives" on Food Network / aka the food bible) It was closed, unfortunately, and we couldn't stop the car to check the hours for fear of our safety.
...ate wonderful food and didn't care how much it cost (remember it was a work trip?)
...go to a great church on Sunday that had a wonderful friendly congregation
...laid around and tried to deal with the jet lag and time change(3 HOURS!)and enjoyed zero responsibilities\
...walked around Folsom, an old gold mining town, that looked just like it might in an old movie, all the buildings (bank, saloon, ice cream parlor, etc.) have been refurbished and look amazing! All are open and so very cool! There are several old towns east of Sacramento that are similar to Folsom.
...drive by the same Folsom Prison that Johnny Cash sang at and loved the crowd so much he recorded his live performance on a record. You should really see that movie, Walk the Line, if you haven't already.
...meet a CBS reporter on the plane on his way down with a crew covering the hurricane. We talked forever and had so much in common even down to politics! :) We've been looking for him on the news ever since.

The boys had an amazing time spending their weekend between two wonderful families that so graciously offered to keep them! We missed them so much the two older ones got to sleep in our bed last night! We do have some dear friends!! Thank you Crouthamels and Stauffers! Shannon and Dave had a lot of stares as they walked into church Sunday am with EIGHT CHILDREN in tow. Landon did great and adjusted quickly. I wondered if he recognized me though. Sawyer is so independent, he did great as well, playing on the farm was sure a fun time. He highlighted for us stepping in "fresh" manure and said he just scraped his foot off on a board. (he was barefoot) and playing Geo Tracks for hours. Those are the kind of memories that he won't soon forget.
We did hear a few things that came out of Dawson's mouth that made us laugh. It seems as he and Ms. Julie were outside waiting for the school bus, he felt the need to share, "hey ms. julie, your ribs are nice and big". absolutely no filter .... she had a great laugh first thing in the morning though, and that is always good for your soul, right? Then watching a movie, Evan Almighty, he heard them mentioning the animals that came off the ark, he heard Jack _____ and since he had never heard this before(thank you very much), he didn't know what it was. So he said, "JACK A____?" very loud as if to say, "what is that?" Our friends, whose names will stay unmentioned (see above) just looked at each other containing their hysterics, and said in unison, "DONKEY!"
We are all glad to get back home and on our schedule and hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend as well!