My grandparents were amazing. My grandma was sarcastic (shocking huh if you know me at all) and my grandpa was hilarious. "Yes, grandpa, we would love some soda water!" It was bitter sweet to have my grandma pass. You never want to see your loved ones go, but at the same time, she was old and it was her time. She lived for 100 years for crying out loud and had a great life, but she has a husband and a daughter who were waiting for her on the other side.
My whole family was able to go back to Sacramento one last time together for the funeral or rather grave dedication. Really was no point for a funeral, she had outlived everyone anyways, but we all were going to be there to say good-bye, support our mom and do our favorite Sacramento things one last time or one first time for some new-comers to the family.
I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking for me, although if you were to get inside my head right now you could see all my wonderful memories that I want to hold on to forever (their garage with bowling trophies inside, golf clubs every where, a blue and red bike for me and RJ to ride, a bird bath out back, the smell of the fig tree next door, the sound of the screen door as you open it for the first time when we would finally arrive at their house after a 12 hour drive, the 2 single beds pushed together to pretend they were one, the little television in their bedroom we would go watch when we didn't want to watch what our parents were watching in the front room, the pink flowered with gold trim laundry basket in the bathroom, the chocolate donuts for breakfast, making houses out of a deck of playing cards, feeding squirrels, going on walks every evening and coming back and having a bowl of ice cream in the 70s colored bowls, the wooden desk in the hallway that kept all the decks of cards, the lamp on the dresser that you touched to turn on and off, the sound of my grandparents kissing each other 3 times on the lips every night before they went to sleep, the sound of the grandfather clock in the family room that would chime every hour on the hour, sooo many wonderful memories I have).
Flying on an airplane is so much fun if you are a kid :) All the boys stared out the window watching the planes arriving and departing
We had 4 rows on the plane so needless to say, there was lots of seat swapping going on...
First thing we did when we landed was head over to Fairytale Town, a favorite hot spot of ours! 
"There was an old lady who lived in a shoe" slide
The medieval castle
That night we went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We had a little bit of a big party so they gave us our own private room, it was pretty nice because we didn't have to worry about bothering people around us.
My dad hates pictures. I tried to take as many of him as possible to annoy him.
The next day we got up and hit up Sutter's Fort. John Sutter came to California and built this fort and had a little city running from inside with Indians guarding the outside. He was very prosperous until people discovered gold on his land and then that started the California gold rush.
Playing a stick game that the kids would play back in the 1840s
Tyson and Conner and all the cannons protecting the fort
Tyler checking out the place
Later that day it was time for the funeral. My mom did not put the info in the paper because Grandma didn't want it in there. My dad did manage to sneak in a few phone calls to some close friends and they came out in support of Grandma.
After my dad dedicated the grave, whoever wanted to do so was allowed to go and place some flowers on her coffin. I placed 3 pink roses (her favorite color) in honor of the 3 kisses she would give Grandpa each night.
The Rodgers family
The Rodgers Siblings
The Jensens
The Johnsons
The soon-to-be Mr and Mrs Entrekin
My mom's friend Lela Cushing
We found these headstones to be most interesting/sad. There was 5 or 6 of them, all siblings that had died from the flu epidemic in 1918. How sad for those poor parents to had to bury their kids.
After the funeral we headed out for our favorite food place, Vic's Ice Cream. We ate our lunches as fast as we could so we could hurry and order up some yummy desserts! mmmm goooood!
Ok so Tyson might have been staying up to late at night and skipping his naps for the first time ever so poor little guy actually fell asleep while chewing his sandwich...check out the food in his mouth :)
I love taking pictures of my dad when he hates it!
After Vic's we headed over to Grandma's house to walk "the walk" one last time. It was just like old times!
Barlin - my great-grandparents got to name the street and so they named it after their grandkids (my mom and her twin sister, Linda. Barbara + Linda = Barlin) because they were the only grandkids left that didn't have their name used already somewhere in town.
Then we stood in front of their house. It still looks the exact same. It was really trippy though, I stood there and put my hand on the screen door and just wanted to open it and go inside, but it wasn't their house anymore. I wanted to knock and just ask them if I could walk through and tell them how my Grandpa built that house himself, but then I figured it still wouldn't be the same because they weren't in there. I took a whif of the air and it was a familiar smell, it was Grandma and Grandpa. I ran around the side of the house to take a peek in the back, it was basically the same with a few tacky plants added. Dang, how I wanted to go through the gate and watch my mom and grandpa grilling something on the grill for us to eat for dinner.
We continued on down on the walk. It was all pretty much the same, they took a small field and added a few track homes to it which was very disappointing since there was not one set of tract homes I had ever seen in that area, every house was unique and I liked it. We finally made it to the freeway over pass. I told my kids we had to race over it to see who wins and since RJ wasn't there at that moment, I told them I always won :)
Tyler fell and got left behind, poor kid
Emma was the winner of the race if you can't tell from this pose
After the overpass the little ones got tired and had to get some rides, wooseys.
Another thing that changed was you used to be able to see the marina from the walk but now there is a ginormous hotel blocking it, it looks like a super nice one, but the poor marina is out of sight.
After you round the corner is the freeway underpass. We used to run up to the top of it and race up there. If you haven't figured it out by now, I won that too! ha ha! I did race everyone up there this time and even won for reals, although they might not all have known we were really racing :) We posed for the picture and I said do the punk rock sign, all of us did except for dumb Caryn, she did I love you, wow.
As we were finishing off the walk RJ found a big pile of leaves and decided it would be fun throw Eli in it and then to play in, the kids loved it and so did Ashley, the rest of us were to cool for that, ha ha.
When the walk was all over with (ps, mom don't be mad, but Tyler really had to pee so we let him pee on the fence of your grandma's house, we left a lasting impression before we left) we all decided to go to the park to feed squirrels for old times. My boys had never fed squirrels before and come to find out, neither had Jen, it was a must! While we waited for my dad to go grab some peanuts from the store we took lame cheesy pictures and had races. (Ok I didn't win this time, but I am sure Blake cheated some how).
Here is RJ's family with the kid he always wanted :)
Well this park was a bust. So we left and went to another park and found one lame squirrel. Jen never did get to feed the squirrels but the next day the Jensens and the Johnsons went back to Capital park and fed the squirrels and this time there was too many to count! The kids thought it was so much fun!
We found an upside down tree in the park and Emma thought it was fitting to take an upside picture next to it
This was a first for all of us, we went and saw the new Sacramento Temple (well new to us anyways)
Here is the house that my mom grew up in, another house my Grandpa had built
This building used to be my Grandpa's hardware store.
Every time we would visit our grandparents we would also visit the Willyerds and the Washburns. I didn't get to make it to the Willyerds house this time (it is a regret that I have, if I could go back in time I would have made that happen, we love Uncle Eric and Aunt Jeanne and their fun house), but we did make it to see the Washburns. Even Ryan and his family came over to visit too. I loved going to Kristen's house growing up. Her mom would french braid my hair and I would leave it in for as many days as possible, we would play dress up, I would sleep over, it was a lot of fun - one time, we might have packed a picnic lunch in our backpacks and went and ate inside a model home until we got caught and got kicked out, ha ha).
Me and Kristen.
Kristen, me and Ryan
Our kids all ran around together and had a great time. Emma especially had fun with Emily and asked that next time they come down to visit that I get them together :) They are only 4-5 months apart.
Rick, Kristen, Jared, Carol, Ryan, Michelle
I am glad we got to visit with them for a little bit. I wish I could get together with my cousins more, I always have such a great time. I love my cousins!
That night we picked up Cheesecake Factory and headed back to the hotel for the last night. Once again our room was the party room and we had food, games and movies going on. A sad occasion brought us all together but I am grateful that we were all able to go and spend that time together. It was a fun and memorable trip. I love my grandparents dearly and will always treasure them. I miss them already and wish they were still here with us.
