Getting Outside

Thank goodness, the ice cream shops are still open.

And thank goodness, the weather has been lovely for bike rides. We took advantage of both this week, going on a ride to the Baskin Robbins on Lyons.

We stopped at famous Bendy Tree on the paseos by the (sadly, padlocked) tennis courts, right behind our friends Geoff and Patrice's house. Stace embarrassed the girls by shouting over their back wall, but no one was outside to hear him. I'll have to text them next time for an over-the-wall, socially distant chat.

 Over the weekend, we went to the garden center to get some new flowers and a few veggies.

We decided to take out a lot of the myoporum in the front under the tree that had become scraggly (or died) and replaced it with this yellow flowering succulent, often seen at our beaches.

Nice! It'll be fun to watch these grow and fill in the area.

Violet found a dove on a nest in Cora's hideout on the hill. The nest was on a wooden plank Cora had put up in the tree as a shelf.

Violet was so excited to see the tiny babies! But a few days later, the mama and babies were gone - Vi was sad all day. The babies were too young to have flown away on their own.

 Our hill is a pretty awesome place.

Cooking under Quarantine

I've assigned the girls dinner duties this week, and Violet took it very seriously. She wanted to make fried rice, one of her favorites, with bacon. She didn't just want a simple one-pot meal though; she wanted to also serve a side dish. We have Korean dumplings in the freezer, so she fried up some of those.

Yum!

Violet was so fancy, she made menus! She did the same menu idea the night before, when she offered us several dessert options, just because she wanted to serve us.

We've been balancing cooking at home with picking up take-out, especially because our local restaurants need the business. Stace brought home breakfast from the Way Station one day this week, and we had lunch delivered from Firehouse Subs, which is owned by friends of ours.

It was Cora's turn to make dinner, and she tackled shrimp and chicken quesadillas.













While Cora tried to focus on cooking, Stace was performing, and the cat was being surprising. It was a lot to take in!

Cora and Violet worked together on this meal - shrimp scampi. So yummy!

Quarantine Life

Cora updated her calendar to reflect her current schedule.

We're blessed that Cora's sport/activity CAN be done from home, via computer instruction.

Her dojo is like a family, and she misses a lot of the in-person karate banter and sarcasm. But this is better than nothing, and many other athletes on team sports are just not able to get in any action.

Sadly, the girls' tennis outings are over for now. Just after we went to the courts over the weekend, the city closed them for the time being.

Basketball courts and playgrounds are also closed - padlocks on the tennis gates, wood planks secured to the hoops. I suppose kids can ignore the yellow tape to use the play structures, but they'd certainly get dirty looks from passersby.

Interestingly, the day after we went hiking at Rice Canyon, the agency in charge of many of the trails in SoCal, including Rice, Towsley and Mentryville, closed them all to prevent people congregating. So sad! We'd better be careful where we go, or else more places might be shut!

Stace has been working from home every other day, so that his office has fewer people in each day, and everyone can more easily keep their distance from each other.

On Wednesday, after his home-work day was done, he and I went for a walk, and he decided for us to take that walk on Creekside, our Auto Row. He really enjoyed having a look at the cars as we walked by, without any sales people bugging him. (Auto sales are not an essential business, so they aren't working now.)

We've been certainly watching more television lately, since we're home so much. We've watched movies, the girls have watched a lot of Horrible Histories, and we found a new show to binge. It's called The Chosen, and it's a series based on the Disciples. I had a few friends recommend it, and we're all really enjoying how it brings the Biblical era and characters to life in a new way.

Seb has enjoyed our TV time...

...very much.

So has Spencer.

Speaking of screens, Violet's connecting with her friends from KidZone every morning on Zoom. Liana takes part, and Melanie does sometimes, along with other children she normally sees every Wednesday evening. She looks forward to this time, and brings her Bible so she can take her turn to read a verse or discuss the topic of the day.

Weekend Fun

 With a free Saturday, we took advantage of the parks still being open, and went to Valencia Summit Park.

Stace played tennis with the girls, while I went around the big paved loop on my roller blades. Cora roller-bladed with me for a bit, and then Violet went with me on her scooter. Stace also kicked a soccer ball around with the girls.

 Violet was really enjoying tennis in the fall, but the winter class I signed her up for was cancelled due to low enrollment. Then, I signed her up for a class starting in March, but of course the coronavirus meant all classes have been cancelled.

So, she and Stace have been going out every week or so. Cora also has enjoyed playing with Stace off and on.

 Wheeee!

 Cora and I walked over to Granary Square while Vi and Stace finished up, and we ordered milkshakes at the Habit. Restaurants and grocery stores are still open, but lots of other places have closed temporarily. Customers can buy food at eateries for take-out only, as the dining rooms are closed.

We needed to go to Ralphs to pick up a Redbox film - the murder mystery hit Knives Out - and had to wait outside in a line, because Ralphs is limiting how many people can be inside at a time. That way, people can stay six feet away from each other. And Cora preferred a frappuccino to a milkshake, so she went down to Starbucks, only to find them closed. For the time being, only Starbucks with drive-thrus are open locally.

Also this weekend, Violet learned how to take off a tire - Stace discovered the Vibe had a flat, and Vi helped put on the spare.

We loved Knives Out - highly recommend it! I watched it again on a rainy Sunday before we returned it. This time, I took it to a Redbox at the 7-Eleven, because I knew I wouldn't have to wait in line just to go inside the doors!

Coronavirus Weirdness

 Cora's friend Vivian turned 13 Saturday, and for weeks, the girls have been looking forward to a celebratory overnight trip to a beachfront hotel.

But Coronavirus changed everything, much to Cora's disappointment. (We are so fortunate Cora's milestone birthday was in February! Of her group of seven good girlfriends, four of them have birthdays in late March and early April, and will be affected by the pandemic.)

In Vivi's case, we attended a last-minute non-party at the park, where we all stayed the requisite 6 feet away from each other, and did lots of sanitizing.

 It was so nice to see each other and hang out!

Violet's friend Victoria was supposed to have a 10th birthday sleepover this weekend, too. Violet wrote her a postcard during the week, and we'll drop off a gift and card soon.

The weirdness has apparently infected our cats - Spence has decided the upper pantry is a great place to hide...

 ...and relax.

Rice Canyon Ramble

 Our weather has been rainy off and on, but I saw a forecast for a few hours of dryness Thursday and forced us out to a pretty canyon for a walk.

It was muddy, but the girls wore their rainboots as we explored Rice Canyon for the first time (just south of Towsley Canyon).

 The rain started up while we were out, and it was showery off and on. But no bother - these girls are half English!

 We saw several spots of oil! Not a huge surprise, since we weren't that far from Mentryville or the Newhall oil fields.

 This picture is a little hard to make out, I know, but Cora is on the right side, tiptoeing across the stream to reach a very large patch of oil coming down the hill.

 When there is mud, and one is wearing rainboots, one must get as muddy as possible.

 And then, clean up one's boots in the stream.

Cora at one point got stuck in the mud so deep, she needed me to cross the stream to help pull her out. I didn't get a pic of her while she was stuck, but this photo of her boots shows how deep she was in.

It wasn't all mud - there were sweet wildflowers, too. It was nice to get out for a bit and get some P.E., also.

Baking in our New Life

Our lives have dramatically changed in just a few days - from Disneyland and flying to Arizona, to school being cancelled and getting together with friends, frowned upon.

The girls have school work to complete, and they are self-motivated, so the homeschooling part of our world is pretty simple for me.

I'm missing seeing my own friends, taking walks with them, and having alone time in the house. But we're all good, and it's for the good of us all, to lessen the spread of coronavirus.

We've been cooking and baking more - here, Cora is making pumpkin muffins, using the pumpkin we've had since the fall. 

 Violet made our latest batch of oatmeal cake pretty much on her own.

We've watched lots of Horrible Histories, the British show that's as entertaining as it is educational. 

Working from home, fourth-grade-style.