We live on the other side of the Sierras from you, in western Nevada. We have 4 seasons that come and go when they are supposed to. We do have winter, and occasionally we have snow in the valley here, but it mostly melts by noon, or at most within a few days. The summers are warm and dry, it gets up to 90F for a few weeks in the summer most days, but rarely gets over 100F, usually only a few days a year. It cools off each evening so AC isn't needed at night. Also, it's very dry so we don't have the humidity problems, or the bugs that we did in MN.
There is a reason that the valley is largely occupied by ex-Californians. We're ex-Minnesotans -- we like the climate a lot -- it doesn't have the extremes that Minnesota did.