In July 2020, we went to Sacramento for a week! Nearly everything that we did had something to do with WATER. Activities included: camping at Lake Tahoe, kayaking, swimming in pools and rivers and lakes, holding church by the river, tubing on the American River, dinner cruise on the Sacramento River, and horse back riding around a pond and creek.
This was also our first big trip on a plane during the pandemic. Surprisingly, things went really smoothly at the airport and on the plane because hardly anyone was in the airport or on the plane. Our kids did fine wearing masks for many hours.
Swimming in the grandparent’s backyard!
The boys were very interested in all the things that Gramz does for her Amazon business. She showed them how she finds inventory in the garage…
Then weighs the product for shipping…
Prints out the shipping label…
Sticks the label on the package and puts the product outside for the mailman!
We enjoyed an afternoon swimming in the backyard with the Hill family. They were getting ready to go to Puerto Rico to live there for a few months.
Tanner was enamored with Cody this trip, wanting to do everything with him. At the end of the week, we witnessed a miracle with this doggie. Skip to the end of this post to find out.
On our way to Lake Tahoe! It was my first time and the boys’ first time to ever go there!
Setting up camp. We camped with Gramz and Grampz for 2 nights near Tahoe City along Truckee River. Jeremy brought our tent and cast iron skillet in our suitcase. Everything else we borrowed from the grandparents. It worked out really well.
Gramz and Grampz didn’t have the right poles for their tent, so I tried to jerry-rig things. Luckily, they found some at a store nearby. Phew!
It was a short walk to the river by our tents.
I made a very yummy stir-fry meal for dinner.
So much fun with the smores!!
And so much fun in the dirt!
We played a fun pioneer adventure game that felt a lot like Oregon trail, just without a screen. It was perfect timing with Pioneer Holiday that week! Thank you Grandma for bringing it.
Singing camp songs around the fire was my favorite! Gramz taught us some songs I had never heard, so that was really cool.
The kids did really well in the tent with us. We were excited for our skillet breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast.
We explored the dam of Lake Tahoe and a garden by the Visitors Center. Then we had a very yummy lunch with a lake view.
Then we tried to find a beach to enjoy on the North Side, which is supposed to be less crowded. Turns out that when there’s a pandemic and most places in California are closed (like the gyms, amusement parks, movies, bowling, summer camps, public swimming pools, etc), Lake Tahoe became way more popular than normal. So we were stuck in a lot of traffic and we couldn’t get into the areas we wanted to see because of Covid-19 capacity restrictions. Boo!! We all got pretty discouraged about it.
Eventually, in the late afternoon, they opened up a parking lot and we found a spot! This beach was PACKED!! We wedged our way into an open spot where we could have about 5 feet of distance between us and the next party. (Every beach had different rules about capactiy, depending on what side of the state border we were on.)
The entire situation was a great illustration of how STUPID all the shutdowns were. I can’t wait to watch documentaries a decade from now when all the experts will admit how foolish the government and medical officials were with all of this. Shutting everything down didn’t keep people from gathering and traveling. Because, ya know, in order to stay mentally and physically healthy, humans need to be active and see one another, not to be shut up in their homes for months on end.
Instead of keeping people safe and distanced, the shutdowns created huge activity in the few areas like Lake Tahoe that were open. It would have been “safer” to just open up most or all businesses and summer entertainment so that people could have options on activities to do, keeping gatherings to a normal level so that this crazy bottleneck effect on tourism wouldn’t occur.
Tanner and I did a super job kayaking together. We found that singing my paddling songs really helped us stay together and row really fast!
A short rainstorm approached. It was really pretty off in the distance, and it scared a lot of people away! Yay!! We suddenly had a lot of space on the beach! Eventually the sun came out again, an added bonus!
I really liked sitting in the sand and watching the boys (behind me). And I was so happy with how cute my bandana looked!
This is Jeremy covering up from the sun. LOL!
Back at the campsite, we enjoyed more good food, played a game with rock throwing, sang songs, and performed camp skits for each other! Grandpa and Grandma did the bandana/banana skit, and we did the 3 rivers skit. So fun!
Tanner was up bright and early on Sunday morning, as usual!!
We found a chipmunk that really liked the grease in our skillet.
I figured out a new way to do my scarf! I liked how it kept my camp hair covered and protected.
Dallin was a superstar helper with getting things packed up.
A lego activity kept the boys occupied while we packed the rest of our stuff. (Thanks gramz!)
We found a shaded area by the river to hold church. Then we waded in the water. It was a gorgeous day.
Then we drove to a trail by a big lookout point. I think it was called Eagle Rock.
Dallin lost a tooth. We’re pretty sure it was his 6th tooth lost.
We spent a day swimming and playing at Aunt Suzy’s house. A bunch of the Davidson cousins were there: Renton and Elizabeth and their baby, Alisa and kids, Aubrey’s baby, Aunt Sandy and Aaron, Jill and Kira!! The kids had a blast.
Making puppets with grandma was fun! They made a puppet show for Grandma’s online Sunday School class about the pioneers. Tanner had a running joke in the show about cake.
Jeremy is taking out the roots to this tree by the hot tub. It was a sequel to him taking the tree out about 10 years earlier.
Grandma bought some awesome water tubes from Sams club (or Costco?). Then, she decided to get more, but she couldn’t find them anywhere. That’s because swim toys were selling like crazy all over America, as a result of Covid19. Remember, most types of entertainment for kids were closed. One of the few things to do was go swimming at the beach, your own pool, and any river or lake that was actually open to the public. So people were buying water toys like crazy.
Luckily, Grandma had 4 tubes so that Jeremy, me, Tanner and Dallin could all tube together. She dropped us off at one location and picked us up about 2 miles down the river. The boys weren’t so sure about things when we embarked on our journey.
Well, it only took a few minutes in the water for the kids to realize this was really fun!! We held our tubes together so we could all float next to each other. We sang songs and relaxed, ate snacks and enjoyed all the wildlife and scenery. There were a few parts with some rapids that the boys were so excited and nervous about. It was really cool. There was a really cool area that we stopped to swim around. A very fun highlight to our trip!
To celebrate our 14 year anniversary (which was still a month away), I booked us a private dinner cruise on this adorable lobster boat. We chugged along the Sacramento River and enjoyed the beautiful sunset. Our captain was very cool. We were lucky enough to see all kinds of birds and 3 otters!! We ate a beautiful charcouterie board with lemonade and martinelli’s. It was really nice to have some time alone without the kids. Remember, Covid meant we had been going 4 months at home nearly 24/7 without any babysitters or chance to get away. This was easily one of our favorite dates ever!
On the way home from our cruise, we stopped by Tower Bridge and walked across it because I have always wanted to, but never have. It was really fun!
On our last day in Sacramento, we took the boys and their cousin horseback riding! We could hardly believe that an activity like this was open, it was really amazing. The stables were located in a really neat part of town that I had never been to before. It was such a wonderful, relaxing time. It brought back memories from horseback riding with the boys in Puerto Rico 18 months earlier.
Also, It was really fun to see our kids having so much fun with their big cousin (who is actually their first cousin once removed). They get along so well with him. At this time they were age 7, 9 and 11.
Afterward, they played at the park by the stables. The boys were doing a restaurant game.
Then they found cat tails by the pond and had a dual.
They were all tuckered out when we got home. I’m so glad they can be playmates.
The Miracle of Cody – we witnessed an amazing miracle with the grandparent’s dog, Cody. During the week, he had thrown up a few times and then stopped eating and drinking for several days. He was sulking and hardly moving. He didn’t want to be pet or acknowledged. Basically, he was showing every sign in the books of dieing. He is very old, so it made sense that this could be his time.
All the pet hospitals had to limit their capacity due to more stupid Covid-19 rules, so they were either completely closed or had 5 hour waits where you had to sit in the parking lot that whole amount of time in order to get in to see a vet. Mom really didn’t want Cody to die while the boys were there, but there was no way she could get Cody to stay in the car that long to wait for the vet. She tried everything to get Cody to eat or to just lick some water out of her hand.
Dad and Jeremy looked through the church handbook and decided to give Cody a blessing of comfort and that through mom’s faith, he could be healed. Mom held Cody (who was very reluctant to be held), while Dad and Jeremy placed their hands on the dog and gave him the blessing. Dad said in the blessing that Cody would survive through the night, he would gain full health and strength and that he can gain comfort knowing that all of us were there to help him. Within minutes after the blessing he changed completely. He let mom give him water and food. He walked around and perked up. By the next day he was behaving completely normally, following mom around the house, eating, letting the kids pet him. It was amazing!
Before we left, the boys gave him extra hugs. I told them we might not see Cody again. Well, it’s been 11 months and Cody has been plugging away with no major issues since he had that blessing!
On our way to the airport, we had lunch. Tanner gave his comic book (part of his birthday service project) to the grandparents. They were very impressed.
Dallin loved reading the emergency pamplets on our flights. So cute! He also read several chapter books on the flights.
We’re so glad we could spend an awesome time with Gramz and Grampz!!
