Happy Birthday America

It was nice to have an extra long weekend. We drove up to Sacramento to hang out with family. My brother and his wife adopted a kid so they finally had it sealed to them and blessed too. It was nice. They were very honored to have me be there. You are welcome Joe.
It all started with me avoiding coppers the whole drive up. In the end, that didn't work out so well... But Cheryl and I had plenty of talk time. After the whole trip, I mentioned that we'd probably not sat down and talked so extensively before, ever! Or it had been a long time since anyway. I'm still not eating normally, so we just snacked the whole way up. Then 6 hours later, we arrived in the blistering heat. Man was it hot. I wasn't expecting all that heat. In LA its been so nice and cool, with nice ocean breezes and nice fluffy cloud cover. Sacramento was extra hot, dry, stuffy, and very sunny. We spent most of the time inside the house where it was only slightly cooler, mainly due to the plentiful arrangement of ceiling fans.

My brother and his wife kept us all well fed too. It was mostly a gathering of two big families, plus friends, so they prepared well for us. I had to be a little picky with my continuing toothal situation still in my foremind, but it worked out ok. Although there were more, the most memorable meals were Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. On Saturday Afternoon we picnicked by the Sac-temple. They had made fancy sandwiches, but I couldn't taste them. I just had 1 croissant and 3 orange sodas. I don't know about the other family, but our family was constantly pestered by my parents continually wanting new pictures of each of us, from every angle possible. They've officially become crazy grand parents. And with the first grand kid too. I now have more sympathy for famous people being stalked by paparazzi. But that evening we went to Joe's friend's house. Lots of people were there, but it was a big house, so we all fit well. The kids were mostly outside (luckily) and us grownups hung out inside and guarded the food. The secretly funniest moment was when one kid was being friendly with the dog, and the dog was 'friendly' in return, a little to much so, so he (the dog) had to be sent to the garage for the night. Ha ha, poor kid. They served stuffed chunks of meat, vegetables, fruit, and of course deserts. Brandi had made her world famous cookies so I sampled many of those, as well as the fluffy Cool-whip salad, and two Root-beers.

The next big deal was after church on Sunday. It was like picnic food, but fancier. Mini croissant sandwiches, containing juicy lunch meats, vegies and condiments of choice, and my favorite, avocado. It was just so delightful. Not to many adults got desert cause the rambunctious kids dusted those off first. I had two more ice cold A&W rootbeers, and one more later that evening. Man they were good. They kept me full and spirits high.

Cheryl and I went for a drive in the evening to use the car's A/C to cool off. We got to know a little of the area. It reminded me of small-town suburbia a bit. A lot like any new and upcoming town really. Then we got back and watched World-cup recap games. No new games were on, so we re-watched the ones from yesterday.

One thing that Dave and I did was race our remote control cars around Joe's back yard. It was pretty cool. Joe's back yard is mostly like a big gravel/dirt pit so it worked well for us. Dave has a super big one car with monster big tires and he would try to run my car over. He only ran my little car over a few times as I zipped around him many many times. It was fun. Joe did have a huge field behind his house but the grass was too tall and to dead for Dave and I to race around back there.

Then there was the long drive back down. It was OK. I talked Cheryl's ear off, to the point she couldn't sleep. I was entertained, but I don't know if she was. We stopped in the middle of nowhere for gas and food, and it seemed like every single person that was driving thru CA stopped at that stop. We ate at Carls Jr. and the bathrooms were worse than a truck stop. But the we got home. On the way home we made the decision to stop at every Provo girl's dream of Cafe rio. It was ok. Cheryl loved it of course. But then we got home and then I got to unwind with video games.