Danielle and Fernando live directly across the street from a fire station. And although their homeowner's insurance must be the lowest of any home in California, there is the occasional acoustic hazard. Danielle apologized for her neighbors, since an overzealous rookie apparently camped out in front of the station with the lights and sirens at full blast.
I looked at Aimee to see if I was the only one that was completely oblivious to the overnight interruption, but she shrugged her shoulders right back at me. Apparently, we needed this vacation more than we thought.
It didn't take long for two dogs and three kids to join us in the living room, so we clearly weren't going to be sleeping in.
Our first stop that day was Fernando's parents' house. His dad is a lifelong farmer that worked his way up to foreman of a sizable orchard. The owner of the farm recently rewarded his decades of hard work with a brand new modular home on the property.
The house has a giant living room that didn't take long to become the family's daycare center. Fernando's mom cares for several of her grandkids while their parents are at work. She clearly loves it, and the kids to do.
With the kids dropped off at their grandma's house, we grabbed some breakfast on the way to Danielle's work. We picked a small country-style restaurant, and as Aimee and I commented on how interesting it was to see calorie counts on the menu, the server said, "Yeah, isn't it too bad that they have to do that?" Actually, um...
And I've got to say, it definitely affected our choices. I've never chosen tomato slices over hash browns as the side dish with my omelette. But that was a momentary lapse of judgement. We'll get back to donuts soon enough.
We went next to Danielle's work. She's an aesthetician at a nice salon in Turlock. Conveniently, I was badly in need of a haircut, so I got a trim from one of Danielle's coworkers while she
Danielle had a few clients coming in that afternoon, so Aimee and I took her car to the Hilmar Cheese Factory. Seriously. And we had a surprisingly great time!
The Hilmar factory is the largest cheese plant in the world, and they make most of the cheese that we see on store shelves. They produce cheese for various other brands, so even though no one outside of Turlock knows their name, we've all eaten Hilmar cheese.
I'm surprised that I didn't take any photos of the visitor's center, but it was actually a pretty nice facility. We learned all about the cheese making process, and they had lots of samples to try. It was the first time that I had tried cheese curds (which they call Squeakers), and they were pretty tasty!
After the cheese factory, Aimee and I swung by the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner. We wanted to thank our hosts, so we offered to cook everyone dinner. We chose bbq chicken sliders, since that has universal appeal, especially with the under-five set.
But in a moment that my mom will surely appreciate, the kids barely even looked at the meal I spent all day preparing. That was 18 years of overdue karma.
