A Trip Home, Finally

It has been over a year since I've been home to California. Way too long. We were planning on going this week, but my Grandad passed away so we moved our trip ahead one week so we could attend the funeral. The funeral was a wonderful celebration of his life. I am grateful he was my Grandad. I am grateful for the traditions and heritage he has passed on to me. Here is a link to his obituary my Aunt Holly wrote. http://www.oakparkhillschapel.com/obits/obituary.php?id=337281

Later in the week we took Zach to a place called Tilden Park near my parents home. Its a HUGE park, with a steam train, a small farm where you can feed the animals, and a merry go round. Zach had such a good time. He wasn't sure about the Merry Go Round at first but he warmed up quickly.

Next we made our way to the Little Farm. Zach loved feeding the animals. The first animal was a cow and I think he was a little intimidated to be up close to such a large animal. The cow slobbered all over Zach's hand too which he didn't like one bit.

He liked the sheep and goats much better. He walked up to the animals and would say "Hi!" and wave. When he handed lettuce to the animals and would say, "Here you go!"

One particular sheep must have been full and wouldn't take any lettuce from Zach. Zach was being so polite and just wanted to the sheep to take the lettuce but it just stared at Zach. Jacob took offense to this ungrateful sheep, especially since Zach was trying so hard. Jacob told Zach to stop giving the sheep lettuce and turned to the sheep and said, "You're mean to my boy!" and gave the sheep a huge blow in the face. The sheep jumped about three feet back and did the splits. Jacob didn't let Zach say goodbye to the sheep before ushering him along.

Next we took a trip to San Francisco. We road the ferry which Zach loved. Once we got off the boat, there was a shop with bubbles blowing out front and Zach ran back and forth waving and screaming for a while.

Then we took him to see the Sea Lions at Pier 39. That was exciting for about 5 minutes as usual and the Zach was ready to play with Jacob's hat. Zach fell asleep on our long walk to meet my mom for lunch, and then we headed back home. We probably won't do San Francisco again with a toddler. That was a lot of work.

Other than that, we lazed around and visited with my family. On Saturday we made the long drive home, where Zach got very car sick. We returned home smelling like vomit and all needing a bath. It made pulling up to our house and vacation being over a little less bitter sweet.