Vacation Recap – the last few days

The last few days of my parents’ visit flew by fast. On Thursday (10/13), we had a late breakfast and my Dad decided to try out another golf course in the afternoon. My Mom and I decided to drive to Davis. We walked around, checked out some shops and I invited my Mom to a frappuccino. We got a few things at the local Co-Op and stopped for some groceries on the way home. We all met back at home for dinner.

It rained pretty much all day on Friday (10/14) and my Mom and Dad went to the Outlets for some last minute shopping and also stopped in Downtown Vacaville for some coffee. (Can you believe that I’ve never been to Downtown Vacaville? Especially appalling if you know that they have a German Bakery there.)

On Saturday (10/15), the rain had stopped and my Dad went golfing one more time, while my Mom and I went shopping. We went to Kohl’s, Nordstroms, and checked out a couple of yarn stores in the area (that I hadn’t been to). We also went to the German Butcher and got some Bratwurst for dinner. I made my Mom cook bratwurst and red cabbage with potatoes. It was nice to just do some ‘everyday stuff’ with my Mom.

When we came home, we had some coffee and leftover apple pie.

Before dinner, we decided to walk around the neighborhood to check out all the Halloween decorations. Some people really go all out with the decorations.  Unfortunately, it started raining again when we were out and we were lucky that I had grabbed the umbrella before we left, or else we would have been completely soaked.

It kept raining through Sunday (10/16) and we kept joking that California was trying to get my parents used to “German weather patterns” again as their vacation was coming to a close. You know, to make their departure a little easier – haha.

My Dad didn’t want to go anywhere, but my Mom and I decided to brave the weather and go for a walk in Downtown Sacramento. J Street has some nice restaurants and shops and I invited my Mom for some “Kaffee und Kuchen” at Rick’s Dessert Diner.

For dinner, we had one thing left to check off on our list: Sushi at “Bento Box”.  My parents both really like sushi now – who would have thought?

We had Teriyaki Chicken and ordered a bunch of different specialty rolls: King Kong, Paradise, Americano und Dre. All of them were really, really good, but I think our favorite was the deep-fried Americano Roll with shrimp.

When we got home, my Mom and I got a few more rounds of knitting in before going to bed.

On Monday (10/17), it was time to say goodbye again. I couldn’t believe how fast the time with my parents had flown by again.

We wanted to enjoy one last ‘American breakfast’ and I took my parents to “The Fox and Goose”, an English Pub in Downtown Sacramento. It’s a really nice, homey, slow-paced pub with really great breakfast. I think both my parents liked it a lot.

I also had decided to drive them back to the airport in San Francisco.

Originally, my Dad had suggested that they could drive the rental car back to San Francisco and drop it off at the airport, so that I wouldn’t have to make the 3-4 hour round-trip, but I couldn’t really say goodbye to them at home and let them go to San Francisco by themselves. I wanted to see them off at the airport and also enjoy every last minute with them, so we dropped off the rental car in Sacramento and I drove them to SFO.
I am going to be honest, it was hard to let them leave. Saying goodbye never gets easier and I really didn’t want to let them go, but I am really so thankful for the wonderful and special  time that we had when they were here.

Until next time…