Staycation weekend

It’s starting to feel like summahhhhhh!

I don’t want to jinx it by writing it out, because we’ve had several rainy days recently, but we also finally broke into the triple digit temps, so I feel pretty pretty prettyyyyyy good that the weather is here to stay.

Going to the splash park also makes it semi official, right?

Even though both kids love school, we are all very seriously anticipating some unstructured time and all the playing and freedom that comes with it (myself included!).

Remind me that I said this in a month. 😛

Honestly, though, I remember last summer with such fondness. We had the perfect blend of camps, free play, mama field trips, and special activities, while still leaving parts of our days open enough for nothingness…which sometimes got filled with plans, but sometimes didn’t. Childhood.

Anyway.

The opposite has been true for the end of May and start of June.

Our schedule has been packed. Packed packed packed. But last weekend we got a bit of a breather. Kyle came home and my parents took the kids for a couple of days so the two of us could have a staycation here in Davis.

I don’t know who had more fun to be honest. It was so great for me and Kyle to have the time together, but I know my parents had a blast with the kids as well. Their bond is just so strong and special.

Despite being in the calendar for a few months, there was a second there I thought it wasn’t going to happen because my sister had her baby on Friday!

My parents are professional grandparents now though 😉 , so they went with the flow and still took our kids, balancing hospital visits while still fitting in trips to the zoo and playing in their pool. It was a win for everyone involved.

And then I got to meet my new nephew when we drove back to the East Bay to reunite with our littles!!

In between, though, we had two stellar date nights.

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At Kru, we got the smoked duck kushiyaki, seared wagyu nigiri, beef tsukune, and pork gyozas.

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The pork gyozas were incredible, but the beef tsukune was both of our fave.

We also got one sushi roll, which was the other highlight of the meal (which is saying a ton because every single bite we ate was fantastic).

This is the hapa hapa roll, which has salmon, crab and albacore and is lightly fried and served with a garlic sauce and sweet chili with fried soba noodles on top. It was amazing. I could have ordered ten more.

Kru is just such a wonderful restaurant, it never ceases to impress me.

The second night out, we went to Beast & Bounty, which was a very different experience.

Full disclosure, I’ve been here twice before and both times left slightly lukewarm on the experience. The food is okay, but insanely overpriced and I can’t help but feel like they are a little (too) pretentious.

I barely wanted to return, but Kyle has never been, and I felt like he needed to go (at least just once) because there is so much chatter about it in the foodie world. I mean, let’s be real, this is Sacramento, not New York, so it’s silly that we are even pretending there is a food “scene” here, but Sac is trying…and there are definitely improvements…so I don’t want to be a total downer.

But yeah, the hostess stand was empty when we arrived. For a while. Hellooooooo???

But this story has a happy ending!

The food was incredible.

To be clear, we chose the ONLY things on the menu that were reasonably priced and didn’t feel like straight up robbery. $98 for a steak is not acceptable. It doesn’t matter what you do to it.

The Koji cured cabbage salad above, was creative and complex and something I would never think to try (it had fried lamb pastrami – what?!!?). The hot mustard and miso mayo were such flavor bombs.

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Kyle and I shared that, as well as our main entrees.

Straight from the menu:

ROASTED DOUBLE CUT PORK CHOP Baked Heirloom Beans / Caramelized Endive / Pickled Kohlrabi

ORA KING SALMON Panang Curry / Peanuts / Salmon Roe / Peas

The only slightly negative thing I could say about the salmon was that the peanut flavor was too overpowering. A little bit less and I would have enjoyed the other flavors of the veggies and fish much more. That said, it was still a great dish.

The pork chop, however, was the stunner of the night.

You can’t tell how big it is from the photo, but we were both STUFFED after this, and probably didn’t even need the fish course.

We both agreed it was the best pork chop we had ever had. Which for me, isn’t saying much, because I’ve had like three in my whole life, but Kyle has had hundreds, so that’s high praise.

And now the countdown is on until the last day of school!