1. Sunrise Farmer's Market

Today's big Adventure involved a short road trip to Sunrise Mall parking lot and some grocery money.

Saturday morning Farmer's Market at Sunrise Mall has always been my favorite Sacramento area market. The other excellent markets I frequent are Davis (which is a whole different ballgame and will undoubtedly be covered this summer) and Broadway on Sunday mornings. For my purposes on an overcast February morning, Sunrise was the best bet.

Sunrise Mall is (mostly) centrally located for the Sacramento area. It has abundant parking. There are a large number of vendors, with my favorites being the two flower merchants and the Hooverville Orchards stand.

Here's a picture of Kidlets 1, 2, and 3 posing for the camera right after we got out of the car to start our Adventure.

Kidlet 2 is sticking out his tongue and Kidlet 3 is offended by the bright sunlight, obviously.


So we start our Adventure by admiring all of the different produce and flowers for sale at the market before we get down to business and start shopping. Here's a photo of my favorite flower vendor. He's always got good quality flowers that last a long time, for a great price.

Today we ended up buying tomatoes (hothouse tomatoes!), Meyer lemons, daffodils, leeks, carrots, garlic, onions, potatoes, and strawberries. We spent about $30 out of our grocery budget.

That's what I love about Farmer's Markets: you can get great produce for a great price, and often it's not even available in the mass-markets. Can YOU find Meyer lemons and baby leeks at Safeway?

The farmer's market is a great experience for kids. Here are my Top Five Reasons that Kids Love Farmer's Markets:

1. Kids always get free samples. Today the Kidlets were given strawberries, oranges, and asian pears.
2. There are lots of other kids at farmers markets for kids to stare at and talk to.
3. There is often a clown making balloon animals at the Saturday morning Sunrise Market.
4. It is outside.
5. My Kidlets almost always con me into getting them a hot chocolate from the Mocha Truck. (Hint: the fully functional Mocha Truck makes it easier to get out and about that early on a Saturday!)

Here we are with our Loot:

This was a great Adventure. I felt that this was an 8/10 on Mr. Adventure's Utils of Happiness scale. Technically this Adventure was free, because we took the $$ for this Adventure out of our grocery budget.

You can experience this Adventure in the Sunrise Mall parking lot, Saturday mornings from 8-noon, year round.

Introduction

Welcome to my first blog! My family has harassed me enough that I have finally broken down and am creating a blog. I've heard enough back-handed remarks about the Next Great American Novel that I've decided to do something about it.

For my project I've chosen to Be a Better Mom. In order to accomplish this, I have set a (small) daily goal: we (me, henceforth known as Adventure Mom, the kidlets, and sometimes Mr. Adventure) will do at least one Adventure a day. An Adventure will be defined as a new experience: either an outing, a new food, or a new activity. Some adventures will be free, many will be cheap, and a few might be pretty pricey. Most of my Adventures will be based in the Sacramento area, because that is our home base.

I will rate each day's Adventure in Utils of Happiness, Mr. Adventure's favorite term for describing how much he enjoys any given item or experience. I will also list the costs involved with the day's Adventure, as well as where you can go to recreate this Adventure for yourself.

I hope this is as fun for you to read as it is for us to do!