Animal and Science Fun

While I took Cora to Hurricane Harbor on Friday after school, Violet went with Grandma and Grandpa to the Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar. Violet loves her animals, and she had a great time.

Violet also loved the scaly skin of the Argentine Red Tegu. That is one interesting-looking lizard! It's great how the staff members bring out the animals for handling.

This adorable Ring-Tailed Lemur wanted a closer look - see his head sticking through the fence?

Meanwhile, Cora and I had fun with some of her school friends at the water park. Violet had the option of going with us, but chose the animals instead.

On Saturday afternoon, my parents decided to go to the California Science Center in L.A., and offered to take the girls along. Admission is free, and they were able to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Stace and I need to make it down there, too; but on this day, we decided to have a "date afternoon" with our free hours.

Besides seeing the Endeavour and lots of other exhibits, the girls also watched an IMAX film about America's National Parks.

Million Meals

 We had the joy of serving together as a family, with our larger church family, Saturday morning as we packaged meals for the hungry overseas.

Through an event called Million Meals, our church partners with an organization called Children of the Nations to pack and distribute meals in Africa. All together, we as a group packed over 175,000 meals (for a total of several million, over the years).

Cora helped scoop the dehydrated veggies, which went into bags with rice, soy protein and a spice and vitamin packet.

On opposite sides of the long tables, Stace and I both helped seal the plastic bags.

The whole event is a lot of fun, and it's great knowing we are providing tangible help to those most in need.

 The younger helpers were inside, decorating boxes to bring smiles overseas when the shipments are opened up. Here's one of the adorable boxes Violet decorated.

We capped our morning off by sponsoring a little girl in Uganda whose birthday is a few days different than Cora's. Both girls are so excited to write her letters and get her little gifts, and we expect to get regular updates from her.

Friends, kites and wild animals

After a long several months apart, we were able to have a playdate with Juliana, Maya and Natalia on Friday afternoon.

Between our summer trips and their long trip to Brazil, we hadn't seen each other since April! But, together again, it was like old times, and it was wonderful to catch up. I love how Cora and her oldest friend still get along so well, and Violet and Natalia have a blast, too. Their neighbor came over, too, and the girls made homemade lemonade.

 On Sunday, we went to Placerita Nature Center to watch a presentation by a local wolf rescue. The information was fascinating, and the wolves were beautiful.

The girls also had fun flying kites this weekend, through feet power, rather than wind power.

They sure got their exercise, racing up and down the street.

 Besides flying this awesome kite Pop bought them, Violet also ran around with a homemade yarn/paper/popsicle stick kite. It was adorable (if not super successful).

Also this week, we spotted this guy in the yard! Luckily, we didn't smell him later. We actually watched him crawl under the gate to leave our yard.

Back to School

 And here we go!

We're back at it, with the morning routine, the walk to school, and both girls now on the same 7:55-2:40 schedule.

Cora was very excited to begin fourth grade Thursday in Mrs. Shafarman's 4th/5th grade class. Mrs. Shafarman is a veteran teacher who expects a lot from her students, and Cora already loves her for it. She is in with a great group of kids, and we anticipate a great school year for her.

(Note that Cora is wearing shorts - she made a conscious decision that she will no longer wear dresses to school.)

Violet was excited for school too, though finding out she was going to be in the same classroom as last year made the return a little anticlimactic.

She will be one of eight first-graders with Mrs. Hawthorne, who will be teaching 15 kindergartners as well. We are confident that with Mrs. Hawthorne, Violet will be more than ready for second grade in a year's time. Cora was in the bottom half of a K/1 split four years ago with Mrs. Hawthorne.

Violet got more excited about being in a split class when she thought through the fun kinder things she'd get to experience again, like making a Christmas gingerbread house, and doing Muffins with Mom and Donuts with Dad again.

(Violet is still firmly in the "wear a dress on the first day of school" phase. And yes, the backpack is not much smaller than Violet!)

Both my girls are now gone a full day! What will I do? Well, I have a lot of volunteering in sight, plus lots of projects around the house that I've neglected in recent years.

We are praying both girls learn what they need to know this year,  make new friends, and are kind and helpful.

Here is Elaine's photo of Vivi and the girls after the first day. Such happy faces!

Here's Cora and her friend Violet on the second day of school. The fourth-graders all look so big!

 I was impressed by how quickly Mrs. Hawthorne had this adorable bulletin board up in the school hallway, with her "Insta-First Graders."

How cute is that???

End of Summer

With the end of summer vacation in sight, we joined our friends Sue and Jen and their kids at Carpinteria beach on Monday.

It was beautiful, and the children had a great time.

Violet thought it would be fun to walk to Dink's for breakfast, so we spent one morning this week doing just that. Violet walked the whole way, there and back, nearly a mile each way.

One evening, we were out and about and Cora had brought a bit of money. She chose to surprise me and Stace by buying some candy for us from the new bulk bins at Ralphs. Violet took this photo.

Some school friends invited a group of us over for a swimming play date on Thursday. The children had a lot of fun - not long before they'll be seeing each other every day again.

That evening, I took Cora to Encino for her first focus group, with a company I've done paid research groups with for years. She had a great time, and made $125 (which her driver took a small commission from).

We had Colleen, Rigo, Lucas and Liana over for dinner one evening. Cora thought it would be great fun to roast marshmallows - inside. She gathered mini marshmallows, bamboo skewers and a tea light.

Suddenly, we were down to our last week of vacation, with school starting Thursday.

I decided to take the girls to Discovery Cube on one of the days, and we had a nice time together. Violet is using the scanner in the grocery store section of the children's museum here.

An area upstairs focuses on the science behind Formula 1 racing. Here, the girls are competing in a Pole Position-type game, using their own pedal power.

And this little exhibit shows how predators and prey have their eyes set very differently on their heads.

What a great summer we enjoyed in 2016! From beaches and museums, to playdates and library trips, and from England to Hawaii, this is one we'll always remember.

Now, on to first and fourth grades!

Dodger Fun

A mid-August Dodgers day game, with (resale) tickets for $4 each? Why, yes, we will, thank you!

While Stace and Grandma were hard at work, my dad and I took advantage of super cheap tickets Wednesday and treated the girls to an afternoon at Blue Heaven on Earth.

We started the fun at a Dodger Fan Fest a couple of blocks from the stadium. Fans were getting free Dodger dogs and autographs from retired Dodger favorites Eric Karros and Ron Cey.

The line was too long for us to stay without missing some of the game, so we checked out the scene and headed up to the stadium.

First,, though, I stepped in to grab a photo of Karros, who was one of my absolute favorites during his playing days in the mid-90s.

It was a beautiful day for a ballgame!

Following my decades-old rule, I didn't let Violet get a chocolate malt until the 7th inning. Hey, traditions are traditions!

Vi loved the kids play area, too, and insisted we put her atop the huge baseball decoration.

Cora helped out on our walk back to the car. Sadly the Dodgers didn't manage a victory for us, but we still had a great day out, soaking up these summer moments.

Hawaii Scenery

Here's the sweet oceanfront portion of Kailua-Kona, a short walk from our Wyndham Kona Hawaiian condo, as we came back in from our dinner cruise.

Stace and I really enjoyed nosing around the town, looking in shops, on our morning walks while the girls stayed at the condo with Grandma and Grandpa.

So many beautiful photos, it's hard to choose which to include here on the blog.

This is from our final full day, after snorkeling at the little beach a short walk from the Kona gymnasium.

The Big Island has 11 climate zones, and many variations of scenery. Besides the rocky coast, sandy beaches and rainforest, we drove through pasture land and meadows.

We also viewed interesting lunar-looking landscapes formed from hardened lava.

This was the beautiful Waipio Valley.

Can we go back?

Please?

We had an amazing vacation, really memorable, and we're so thankful for the opportunity and time together.

Volcano Day

The active volcano of Kilauea is one of the natural wonders that drew us to the Big Island as we planned our Hawaiian adventure. Cora loves geology, and who wouldn't enjoy seeing a real volcano?

Here is the main crater, which had a lovely rainbow adjacent when we visited.

We had a two-hour drive to reach the national park, with several stops along the way at other points of interest.

New rivers of lava began flowing into the ocean not long before our trip, and the footage and photos were dramatic. But they were way too far away for us to hike to, so we had to content ourselves with driving around hardened lava flows from the last couple of decades.

On our drive around the park, we stopped to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube, left behind when a huge river of lava rushed by hundreds of years ago.











This pretty scene greeted us at the end of the road through the park, where we realized that we couldn't see any red-hot flowing lava without a very long hike.

After the sun had set, we drove back up to the crater, and though it was now pouring with rain, we could see a red glow.

It was a neat day out, though a very long one.