A Lazy Ride

We enjoyed a calm and peaceful Memorial Day on Monday; it's always lovely to have a three-day holiday weekend together.

Stace finished up our latest DIY energy-saving project, solar screens for the east-facing playroom windows and sliding door. He also has made one for Cora's room, which bakes during our summer afternoons.

When he finished up, we got the bikes out and rode to the mall for dinner. It was a gorgeous evening - actually, the SClarita weather was beautiful all weekend.

Some photos from dinner - can you believe how grownup Cora looks? My goodness, she's beautiful!

And Violet, sweet girl, looking less and less baby-faced.

A cycling selfie - nice smile, Violet.















Here is Stace's screening result - three solar screens for the windows, and a curtain of the screening material, which is meant to block out 90% of the sun's heat.

Yes, you can see through them from the inside, though from the outside it works as a privacy screen, too. We're hopeful this project will be helpful this summer, along with the whole house fan, in limiting our use of our central A/C.

Memorial Day Weekend

We were lucky enough to spend one more Memorial Day weekend in our Ventura beach house, while Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty were in Washington for a long weekend trip.

We "house-sat" for them Friday through Sunday, and on Friday evening we walked down to the beach and caught this glorious scene.

On Saturday, Colleen and Rigo came up to spend some time with us, and we all took a long bike ride down to the pier for lunch.

We went down the beach, where it was a bit cool for frolicking in the waves. The children needed a warm, sandy blanket.












Rigo's birthday was Sunday, so we celebrated Saturday with a barbecue and cake. It was such a blessing to enjoy Bill and Patty's beautiful home with great friends!

Week in Review

For the second time in three weeks, Stace and I had a weekend conference and my parents had the girls. This time, they all went to visit Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty on Saturday and played at the beach.

Meanwhile, we had a conference at church on a new material we'll be going through called "Rooted."

All our church's Life Groups will go through this 10-week course, with daily readings and homework, in the fall. Because I'm a Life Group leader, I was asked to attend the retreat to get familiar with the course, which goes through the basics of the Christian faith. We enjoyed getting to know the people at our table during the retreat, and the free meals.

In the evening, the girls were still out in Ventura, so Stace and I walked to Granary to rent movies.





While I helped in the church nursery
Sunday morning, Stace took the girls to the Queen's English British classic car show in the San Fernando Valley. Here are the girls in front of a Morris Minor, the car that closely resembles the Calico Critters "cherry cruiser" Cora recently bought.

It would be nice to say that Stace and his girls enjoyed their trip equally, but, in all honesty, the girls weren't as enthusiastic about checking out the cars as Stace had hoped. Oh, well...

On Monday, we met up with our Life Group at our church's homeless ministry at the Newhall campus.

Every Monday, church volunteers meet to serve a meal to the homeless and offer donated clothing. Every other week, a shower truck and hairstylists are on hand to assist with that type of hygiene.

Cora was a bit nervous about the idea, but when she found that she could be helpful bagging donated bagels to hand out, she jumped right in. It was a great experience.

Violet had her six-year well check this week, and she is very healthy.

She is now just over 40 pounds, putting her in the 22nd percentile. Height-wise, she is now 41 1/4 inches tall, a solid three inches taller than one year ago. She has moved up the charts from 1st percentile last year to 2nd percentile this year. Progress, right?!

The students had a half-day on Thursday so the teachers could finish getting ready for Open House.

We invited Sam and Riley over for lunch and playtime, and the launched right into cookie-baking. They did an excellent job making chocolate chip cookies, on their own, and did a decent job cleaning up, too. I guess there are some benefits to having big kids!

On Friday, the children had a flagpole ceremony, and "twins day." Violet was a little bummed about not having twins day plans, but I encouraged her to just wear her kindergarten t-shirt, since it was a Friday anyway. (While Cora contentedly wore her Kinder shirt every Friday, Violet doesn't love wearing hers.)

She was very excited after school to tell me that she had TWO twins at school, who also wore black leggings with their class shirts. Here she is with one of her classmates, Krista.

Cora, meanwhile, had a true twin in Sophia, since Sue asked if she could pick up matching t-shirts for these two cat-lovers. For just a few dollars, this is a shirt Cora will get a lot of use out of!

Open House

How can it be this time of year already? Open House? That means the school year is almost over!

But, first things first. We all enjoyed oohing and aaahing at the girls' classrooms Thursday night during their school's Open House.

Here's Violet and Mrs. Hawthorne; we've very much enjoyed having her as Violet's kindergarten teacher! The whole class has grown and learned so much this year.

In Cora's class, we were able to see a Power Point presentation she created about herself.

Cora has loved having Mrs. Breneman for a teacher, and she also has learned so much this year - multiplication, division, cursive writing, and more.

Speaking of writing, I was amazed to find this gem in Cora's homework folder. The task was to compare the weather in Seattle and San Diego, and then write about which climate you would prefer.

Cora didn't answer with a simple couple of sentences. No, she crafted a three-stanza poem:

"I would like to live in San Diego,
Where it never snows or pours.
The grass is always leafy green, 
and you can dive to the ocean floors.

"I would like to live in Seattle,
Where the snow is a beautiful sight.
It may go to your ankles,
But it glistens through the night.

"I would like to live in both places
The beaches to wade
Or the snowy, frozen ponds.
But then, I'm here, and I like it here today."

On a related note, we recently learned that Cora passed the test admitting her into her district's Gifted and Talented Education program, known as GATE.

One of just four third-graders in her school to pass - out of about 75 - she gained entry based on her verbal (writing) ability. We're proud of this girl! We had an after-school ice cream when she came home with the letter.

Cherry Picking

While listening to the farm talk at Underwood last week, I remembered cherry picking in Leona Valley, and specifically how I hadn't taken the girls in several years.

I researched online to see if any of the handful of family orchards up there were open, and found that two would be open on Friday. It was a free Friday after school, and Christina was also available to come along, so we made plans.















The first orchard we visited was just perfect!

There were loads of sweet, juicy, ripe cherries everywhere we looked. It was a challenge to not fill the buckets - at $5 a pound, two full buckets would have been a pretty penny.

But they were so delicious!

All these photos are from the first orchard - the second place wasn't really remarkable, and the cherries weren't nearly as sweet.
But it did have some children's play equipment, and all told, it was a fun activity for an afternoon out with friends.

Odds and Ends

Following Cora's all-star game last Saturday, we met up with her softball team for the end-of-season party, held at a beautiful community pool.

The cake was amazing! Made by Coach Cory's wife Kim, the cake consisted of cupcakes arranged and frosted to look like a softball field. The girls' names were placed on toothpick flags, in a cupcake near the position they played.

After cupcakes, the girls had a cannonball competition - here's Violet's entry.

When the pool party was over, we rested at home before going to the end-of-year Mom2Mom family picnic, with dozens of our favorite friends. Yes, it was a crazy full Saturday!

On Monday night, we returned to the ice rink so we could skate together as a family, since Cora missed out on the skating part of Violet's birthday party.

It was a lot of fun, and because it was a promotional $5 "cheap skate" event, we ran into several friends there. The girls are excited to return to the Ice Station for summer camp in July!

Helpful, Seb. Really helpful.

I saw a deal online for this 50-gallon portable rain barrel, and for $30, we knew it was worth having. It can collapse and be packed away when not in use, and has hose hookups at the bottom. 

If it rained here, we could put it under the gutter's downspout to catch the runoff. 

Since it doesn't rain, I'm using it to hold leftover bathwater, and the water from the shower buckets, for use on the trees and garden.

Speaking of gardens, just look at the girls' veggie patch! The zucchini, tomatoes, beans and cucumbers are looking fabulous, and the grape vine behind them is producing tons of tiny grapes.

Underwood Farms

On Wednesday of this week, Violet's kindergarten class took the annual field trip to Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark.

This time, as an official chaperone (and room parent, and regular Wednesday volunteer), I got to ride the school bus with the kiddos. (Here's my blog post about Cora's kinder trip...)

We then had our farm lesson from Farmer Juan, with scores of other field trippers from other schools.

On our tractor ride into the vegetable fields, we were amazed by the many shades of green.

We pulled up radishes, picked sugar snap peas, broke off kohlrabi and snapped off long kale leaves.

Then it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we had a bit of time to explore the fun parts of Underwood - the animals, the huge combine slide, the pyramid hay stacks and the underground tunnels.

We gathered again for a class photo before reboarding the bus.








Violet and Danica: "No photos, please."

Here was our haul! I used my vegetable cookbook to find some awesome ways to prepare these beauties, and the whole family ate it up.

All Star!

Cora was thrilled to be selected to play in the William S. Hart Softball Mini-Minor All-Star game on Saturday morning. She worked hard all season and had a showed talent and a great work ethic, and both were displayed in Saturday's game.

She struck out in her first at-bat, but then had two solid hits in her next two at-bats. The first was a double off the pitcher, and the second went to the wall, but it was off the coach so Cora had to stay at first base.



She knocked in a run and scored a run, and pitched an excellent inning, with no runs allowed and two strikeouts. Cora's team, which included Payton and MJ, won the game. 

Kristin and Cory were selected to coach and manage the team, which was fun. They played against all-stars picked from the other Hart Mini Minor teams - the eight teams in the league were divided in two, with girls from each team selected to play.

It was very nice that Keith and Uncle Bill joined Grandpa and our family, to cheer on Cora. Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty have decided to move back to the Seattle area so it was nice that he was able to see the game.

Disney!

With summer coming, when our annual passes will be blocked out, we made our final group trip to Disneyland of the school year Friday afternoon.

Grandma and Grandpa came with us, and soon after we arrived, we met up with all our school friends and rode the Matterhorn together.

It was Violet's first Matterhorn trip, since she has just reached the height of 42 inches (in her shoes). She wasn't overly enthusiastic about the ride, since the Yeti's roar scared her.

But Cora had a blast.

We then went back to the Star Wars Launch Bay, where Jen's special access credit card earned us a private visit with Kylo Ren. He spoke to each child, encouraging them to join the First Order.

He noticed that one member of our party had refused to come over, so he personally invited her. But Violet, with a smile and a giggle, staunchly refused.

Our friends then went on to their dinner reservations in California Adventure. With Grandma and Grandpa, we went on the Nemo submarine ride, and then got in line for Autopia.

I rode with Violet, who drove (us crazy).

Cora drove Grandma (crazy).

We then used fast passes for Star Tours and Astro Blasters, before heading over to California Adventure.










While Grandma and Cora screamed their way through California Screaming, Violet and Grandpa and I went into the Animation Studio. Violet drew this girl kicking a soccer ball, which looked animated when we put it into the spinning viewer.

It was then time to make our way home. Another fun Disney day in the books!