Week in Review

On Monday, the girls' first day of school, I had Ellie with us for a few hours while Melanie and Nick went on a little trip to pick up their new kitten.

Ellie came with me to pick up Cora, take her to her singing lesson, and get a third estimate on repairing Grandpa's car. We then made a quick stop to see the ducks at Bridgeport Marketplace.

Later that night, I picked up my parents from the airport, and Ellie spent the night at their house.

Stace has been begging the girls to come up to the swimming pool with him, and one day this week, even Cora agreed to come up. She threw the ball while Stace dove in to catch it. 

Happy Dad.

Violet and I went to see Liana play in her first high school volleyball game! This game was at Santa Clarita Christian School, where I went from the middle of 4th grade through 8th grade. It was cool to show Violet where I spent a few years, and even better to see Liana on the court.

She's in the back, far left side, here.

Careful on your morning walks, you never know what you're going to run into!

Also this week, we watched Our Town, the play Cora will be doing this fall, on television with Paul Newman as the lead. And on Saturday we saw a mystery play at the Main theater with my parents, and went out to a new brewpub after. 

Back to School

Well, that summer went by quickly! And now we've somehow reached Cora's final year of school, and all the lasts begin. 

For Violet, this was her first day of high school. 

Oh, how we do wish they could be at the same school together for this one year. I never would have thought back when Cora promoted from Meadows, that she and Vi would never be on campus together again.

 This was Cora's first day of kindergarten.

First day of her senior year! May the Lord bless her with peace, joy and personal growth.

Violet was nervous! But all went well. I drop her off in time for brunch, she has her biology and art classes, and I pick her up after lunch. This way she can see her girlfriends.

May the Lord guide her throughout these next four years and bless her always.

We'd forgotten the signs on the actual first day, so Stace brought these home later in the week. You can see that Violet is a little more relaxed here!

Yes, that's paint on Cora's legs, from painting minis. This girl!

Cats

We're at the stage in cat ownership where all boxes are saved for a few extra days, to serve as exciting hiding places and nap spots.

Sometimes, bags are saved, too.

This doesn't happen often. Seb usually sleeps at the end of our bed. 

I feel sad for Violet - the kittens are amazing, and she adores them, but neither sleeps with her, as Spencer used to.

They used to be able to share one spot so easily!

Usually it's Winston being naughty with food, but Evie discovered she likes pork rinds! Naturally!

Final Week of Summer

 I tried a new French bread recipe the other day that came out beautifully - using store-bought flour.

The girl are now registered for school. Here's Violet on Tuesday at Hart, where she'll take two classes. She also went to registration at LPA, where she'll take the rest of her classes, on the online/at-home platform. 

Cora got registered for her senior year Monday, but I forgot to take photos since I didn't go in with her. She'll have a weird schedule, taking a full three classes every other day, and only one class on the opposite day. Her school uses a block schedule, with three longer classes each day instead of 6 shorter ones. She'll also take an online class at the college.

Also on Tuesday, Nick came over to watch the latest Ghostbusters film with us during the day, continuing our tradition.

Stace and I went over to Central Park to watch the Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band entertain the Concerts in the Park crowd Saturday night.

After Cora's registration, we had dentist appointments, and then went to Liz's house for a summer's end pool party.

The seniors!! Cora and Chris, in the green, were kindergarten classmates and now are graduating! And all four were at the same elementary school from first grade on, when Cami came to the school.

And these were the little siblings, now high school freshmen.

It was a fun time reconnecting with everyone and eating well!

Violet went to her friend's house, and when I went to pick her up all the lights came on and the car wouldn't restart. Stace later determined it's the alternator. 

He bought a new one and sought to replace it, and in so doing, part of the brittle plastic radiator disintegrated. So I ended up getting a new radiator from Stacey's House of Mazdas. It was a frustrating job, because the radiator he initially bought leaked from a bad seam, and he had to do the whole job over again, in the heat. Eventually, he got it all done.

I took my parents to the airport, and Dad made it clear I could use his car, while mine was out of commission as Stace worked on it. So I drove Cora to Logan's house for D&D and got rear-ended as I exited the freeway. It wasn't bad, and the guy stopped and we exchanged information, so all will be fine in the end. But it did bring back a lot of emotion, being the first situation like this since my big accident. Cora was amazing in helping calm me down.

Also this week, JT and her kids came by, and finally met the kittens! And we had Colleen, Rigo, Lucas and Liana over for dinner and some pool time, on our final night of summer break.

Santa Barbara Day

 It's been hot at home, so Vi and I went to Rincon beach, her favorite, on Friday afternoon. We forgot to take photos, but we saw dolphins and a sea lion in the surf. 

Over the weekend, Stace had to work Saturday morning (his turn on the rotation). He then was stuck under a hot car a lot of Sunday, so we rewarded him with a trip to Santa Barbara on Sunday afternoon.

We couldn't convince Cora to come, but thankfully Violet still likes doing some things with Mom and Dad. We parked near the marina, and walked down to the end of the breakwater.

We enjoyed Japanese food from the place we've been a few times now.

And for the first time, we noticed a sweet coffeeshop in the same building as the maritime museum.

We drove back down the coast and pulled in at the beach park in Summerland, which we discovered when we stayed nearby in April.

We noticed a sea lion on the shore, and some people told us it was sick from the recent algae bloom. They'd called the marine specialists for help. A quick search online informed us that hundreds of sea lions on the central coast are suffering this month.

Stace and Violet played with the frisbee.

We love living so close to the coast (relatively speaking).

Wrapping up July

Summer is moving along; the girls are nearly finished with their online classes, Violet is drawing a lot, and Cora and I have been watching the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. She also has been printing mini figures for a new D&D campaign, once she figured out what was wrong with her 3D printer and bought a new screen. She's also attended theater camp this week at school.

On Friday, I went down to Glendale to hang out with this cutie so her parents could have a movie date. She's been taking swimming lessons, and has improved so much! We had fun in her neighborhood pool after walking to Ralphs to fill the time, and spell out the words we could see in the produce section. Her sounding out is coming right along, too.

They are getting a new kitten soon, so I brought the little bed/house that our kittens have stopped using. Gibby seemed to like it.

Ellie and I also created (and knocked over) Magna-Tile towers.

Our Saturday started bright and early with a drive to Torrance for the annual Aerospace Games. 

Stace was captain of the volleyball team, and they didn't do well, but he had more fun playing dodgeball.

It's always a nice day getting closer to the beach and hanging out with Stacey's coworkers, with free food and snacks.

In the evening, we watched a one-man show about old-time baseball legend Christy Mathewson. We've seen this show years ago, and when I learned the actor was putting it on again, I wanted to support it. He does a masterful job portraying Christy, a wonderful human being and believer, and a large cast of characters who interacted with him.

On Wednesday, Kelly invited me out to see UB40 at the Greek Theater in L.A. We started off with dinner at a great place nearby.

The band has gone through different lead singers in recent years, but it was a great show with lots of hits. English Beat, or just The Beat in the UK, opened.

This was my first real concert in years. It was a lot of fun.