Universal Fun

For Cora's 11th birthday, we took a family trip to Universal Studios, primarily to soak up the Harry Potter magic in the section of the park focused on the books and movies. It was our first time there since before Cora was born - and it was outstanding!

The area consists of two rides, including the main ride behind the girls here in the Hogwarts castle, and many shops that mirror shops in the movies.

Auntie Mel and Uncle Nick came with us, and Grandma and Grandpa met us after Grandma got off work. We decided to go on a Thursday, to experience the park properly without the long lines.

Grandma's friend gave the girls her Harry Potter wands, purchased at Universal Studios, and Melanie let them borrow her Gryffindor scarf. Cora's eyes when we walked into Harry Potter World showed her wonder and awe.

We went on the little coaster first, because Violet could enjoy it. The second ride - the biggie - was an amazing experience. The whole line was filled with interactive displays and little things from the films.

When we got to the front of the line, Violet and Stace went into a waiting area with comfy seating and the movies playing on a television. After Cora and I went on the ride with Melly and Nick, Stace and Cora went. Sadly, the motion made Stace really sick for most of the rest of the day.

After the ride, we had butter beer!

If it hadn't been such a warm day, you really could imagine you were in Hogsmeade. Just going in and out of the shops is a thoroughly enjoyable experience - and the pub! Like being back in England!

Ollivander's wand shop was one of the fun ones; another was Honeydukes sweet shop, where Melanie treated the girls to chocolate frogs.

After our Potter adventures, Stace, Cora and Violet and I went on the hour-long studio tour. The girls really enjoyed it, except for the Fast and Furious portion at the end - Violet found it scary and had her head in my lap.

We met up with the family again, and walked through the Simpsons section. We didn't go on this ride - maybe next time! The pricing made it better to get a season pass for the year, so we will definitely be returning.

We had a bite to eat and then went on the Jurassic Park water ride - except for Stace, who still wasn't feeling well. He served as our photographer - nice shot of us, SOAKED! Thank goodness it was such a warm winter's day!

We then watched the Waterworld show, before hurrying to ride the Mummy a couple of times. By this time the park had pretty well cleared out, as it closed at 6 p.m. We then hurried back up to the Harry Potter rides for one more go.

My dad captured this beautiful shot of the castle at night.

It was a very fun day, with the exception of Stace feeling sick.

We had dinner at Bubba Gumps - Uncle Nick answered every quiz question from our waitress correctly!

The server asked Cora to make a birthday wish when she brought out a cupcake and we all sang to her. Her wish was to watch her daddy dance - he was a good sport!

Happy 11th Birthday, Cora! Another year older, speeding toward those teen years. But for now, she's still young enough to eat the frosting first... We love you!

Science Fair

Cora chose to investigate which glues would work best to repair squishies for her science project this year.

She was inspired by an incident, when Livi tore Violet's squishy, and we were googling which glue would work best. We found online that super glue can dissolve squishies - interesting!

For the project, Cora cut up a large squishy and used five types of glues to adhere the pieces together.

After letting them cure for 24 hours, she used a luggage scale to measure the force required to tear them back apart. A few didn't break - those were some strong glues!

She found that epoxy, super glue and wood glue worked the best - and the super glue did not dissolve the squishies, in her tests.

Cora came in first place in her grade!

Should we mention that she came in first, out of two entries?

Naahh!

(There were actually nearly 100 participants in the fair, mostly in the primary grades.)

We're proud of your hard work, Cora!

Fun Stuff

A group of my girlfriends got together last Saturday night for an Escape Room and dinner. I missed out on the Escape Room fun, but enjoyed dinner out at a new brewery/restaurant in Old Newhall.

Earlier that day, my parents took the girls on a whale watch, and Stace and I did some planning for Cora's bedroom. We also stepped out to shop for supplies and get a drink, at a new brewery near the mall.

Yes, SClarita is sprouting new breweries like spring wildflowers.

And Saturday, we went out with friends from Mom2Mom. Instead of doing another bowling night, we went to Claim Jumper for dinner.

Bed Re-do

 Cora and Stace created a captain's bed for Cora over the weekend, transforming her old dresser, along with a new bookcase, into the base for her mattress.

As always, Cora proved herself quite the hard worker, using Dad's tools like an expert. Here, she's countersinking holes in the slats that the mattress would rest on, in the space between the wall and the back of the dresser.

 With supervision, she also used the table saw to shorten the lengths of wood.

Stace had the idea of filling the gap between the dresser and bookcase with an additional small bookcase he fabricated. My engineer is a creative genius.

 Sebastian approved of the open drawers. Behind the dresser, you can see the string of lights Cora later put up in the area that will serve as her secret hideout.

Sanding the edges of the finished edging...

 Ready for a mattress and a good night's sleep!

Happy girl in her new bed, with double the floorspace in her bedroom!

Tidbits

Stace and Cora had a Star Wars movie date this month; Cora really enjoyed the latest installment.

And last week, I got to take her to a movie, too. We saw the Greatest Showman, which we loved. She'd been wanting to see it since watching all the previews on the Internet, and then all my friends were raving about it.

It worked well for us to see it in Glendale, at the fancy Americana shopping center, because Cora participated in a paid focus group nearby.



We had dinner at Porto's amazing bakery, and we also went shopping at Barnes and Noble. Cora was super impressed with the gigantic, three-story bookstore. Cora bought herself a book, and I bought one for her and Violet to share.

Cora was in such a great mood with the books and movie - a musical - that she was dancing around to the music playing in time with the fountain. Love seeing her joy!

On Friday evening, Cora and Cami went to a fun Open Night at Hugo's Gym, where the Cora and Violet did a class a year ago.

On this evening, the fifth- and sixth-grade youth group at Valencia Methodist organized a group trip to the open gym. It wasn't a private event, and several other kids from the girls' school happened to be there, too.

After the gym, we went to watch Stace play soccer with his new team, made up of Woodward employees. He's having a great time getting back into playing.

No, Cora didn't take a trip to the rainforest. She's up on the hill, in one of her hideouts. She took Stace up to show him around. This kid loves her hill! She also loves taking friends up for adventures.

Also, we found one of the monarchs we've helped raise struggling on the ground outside.

We brought it in for a couple of days and fed it sugar water. Here, Cora and Violet are offering it cantaloupe. Sadly, it didn't make it more than a few days.

First Lost Tooth!

This photo needs its own blog post - because after more than 7 years of waiting, the Tooth Fairy was finally able to pay Miss Violet a visit!

Violet waited all through kindergarten, as students shared each time they lost a tooth and were added to the lost-teeth tally charts for the month. Then, she waited all throughout first grade, with more of the same celebrations every time someone lost a tooth.

Last week, nearly halfway through second grade, Violet was finally able to join in the fun...except that in second grade, not much is made of lost teeth!

The new tooth is already clearly visible behind the empty space, so she won't be toothless long.

Oddly enough, on this same day, she was joined in the tooth-loss department by both Cora and SEBASTIAN! Cora lost one of her upper teeth, while Seb had to have an infected tooth pulled. Poor boy, and poor us! Pet dental work is pricey, because it was basically oral surgery, with the anesthesia and everything.

Week In Review

 Our first week back to life as normal wasn't quite normal, as both Cora and I had a couple of sick days. Thanks to Stace for picking up the slack when I was sick

On Friday afternoon, after Cora had a doctor appointment, I took the girls to the used bookstore where Cora spent some of her Christmas money.

We then stopped at Foster's Freeze, so I could introduce them to a 70-year-old California classic I remember from when I was a kid. Vi and I had chocolate-dipped cones, and Cora had root beer float.

On Saturday, we had a cleaning/organizing day, and in the evening we went to the annual Pioneer Club drive-in movie night.

The children are always encouraged to make their own cardboard cars, and for the first time, Cora was eager to do so. She and Violet both had fun creating their cars.

 The movie was Moana, and Cora fell asleep in her car before it was over.

 We're going to switch up Cora's room a bit, so we went to IKEA to look around for ideas. The closest IKEA moved to a newer HUGE location a year ago, but this was our first time to make it down there.

It was a fun afternoon, with Swedish meatballs for dinner, if you don't count the sibling shenanigans.

 On Monday night, we got together with my parents and Melanie to celebrate my birthday, a little late, but special nonetheless.

I thought Thai food would be fun, so we checked out a place that's been around forever but was new to us. It was great! We'll have to go back.

Cora is looking way too old here, by the way.

When we got home, we had homemade birthday cake, made with love by Cora. She saw a recipe in one of her magazines for a peach cake, and she made it with pears instead because that's what we had. It turned out delicious! So moist and just the right amount of sweetness.

Back Home

Forget all the Christmas presents - THIS is why we struggled to stay under the luggage weight limit on our flight home!

Our flight back Thursday was smooth and easy, and it was nice having Stace home Friday to help with the unpacking.

With little food on the house, we decided to go out to eat. Stace thought Chinese sounded good, and Cora insisted on getting us all chopsticks to use. She's pretty good at using them, too.

Violet, eh, not so much. She went with the food-stabbing approach.

We went to the skate park Saturday and Sunday mornings for the kids skating time, stopping at Walmart first to get new helmets Saturday.

The girls loved riding their new scooters, and thanked us several times for getting them.

Violet helped Stace take down the Christmas decorations, too.

Even the ones on the roof!

Birthday Adventure

Our time in Somerset drew to a close on Wednesday, my birthday. For the first time in all of our trips, we rented a car for our return journey to London, as Dean needed to work and we had a morning flight Thursday.

On the positive, having a car allowed us some nice freedom in making stops on our trip to London. Our first stop was lunch, a birthday meal with Sue and Gord, who drove halfway up to see us off. (Thank you, Sue and Gord!)

We then drove on to Windsor to have a look around and show the girls the castle.

The Christmas decorations hanging between the buildings behind us were pretty. Windsor Castle is one of the official residences of the Queen, hence the purple crown decor.

We weren't able to go into the castle, as it was closing time (and it would have been very expensive had it been open). But we had a nice look around anyway. Through the arched entrance, we could see the chapel where Prince Harry will marry Meghan Markle in a few months.

We got a drink and window-shopped before getting back on the road toward our home for the night, the Premier Inn just off of Heathrow's Terminal 5.





















We got checked in, and enjoyed a mini complimentary hot chocolate. Premier Inn has excellent customer service! We then drove our lovely rental car back to the nearby Enterprise and found the Underground at the airport to take us into London.

The second part of my birthday adventure was strolling London for a few hours. We took the long train ride into Piccadilly Circus, walked around there and then shopped in the Lego store.

Then we hurried down Regent Street to make it into Hamleys Toy Shop before they closed at 9.

The Star Wars display here is inside Hamleys.

The Sylvanian Families (Calico Critters in the U.S.) area was adorable.

Here's Hamleys exterior, with the beautiful Regent Street light display behind.

The glittery sparkly angels are a sight to behold.

Violet took her new navy blue dragon, Sapphire, along for the ride. I love still having a child young enough to insist on taking a stuffed animal! We're all too aware of how short these days are.

I normally wouldn't want a burger for my birthday dinner, but I have heard great things about Shake Shack back home but we don't have one near us. I had seen this one at Piccadilly when we first walked through. The burgers were definitely a treat.

On our way back to the Tube, we saw a group of three police officers standing in Piccadilly Circus. Stace and I remembered the photo he'd taken of me with two other Bobbies on my very first trip to London in 2001, and he asked these gents if they'd be willing to pose, all these years later. They agreed, as long as the photo didn't go on Facebook. Of course, we agreed. If we'd have known, back then!

We got back to the hotel very late, and our Tube car was empty. We weren't in bed until midnight. What an adventure!