Week in Review

 Our last few days at home before our trip to England!

Violet and I went to Ojai on Monday, while Cora went to D&D (and came home early after feeling sick). 

Violet got the idea in her head that she wanted to explore Ojai properly. It's a great destination town, but all her previous trips were after camping for the weekend at Wheeler Gorge, when we're dirty and ready for a shower.

The town is full of galleries, food and drink, boutiques, and Spanish architecture. This building is the post office!

The Ojai Valley Museum here was closed - we'll have to go back on a day it's open. We also looked at the famous Bart's Books, a used book store that's mainly outdoors.

On Tuesday, I caught up with my college friend Melanie in Montrose. And on Wednesday, I visited Kelly's house to see their addition, and we went to the Hollywood Bowl to see a folk concert. Such an amazing venue! We enjoyed a picnic dinner prior, as most people do when they come here.

Just some kitty cuteness! I share pics of Seb with his friends here because it doesn't happen all that often. They all get along fine, but they don't sleep on each other frequently. 

Evie LOVES Violet's sheepskin. She'll lie on it, make biscuits, and lick it.

Just because we love them!

Weekend Celebrations

 On Friday, we went to Liz and Max's house for a graduation party for Chris, and, really, all the kids. These guys have been friends since elementary school, and Chris and Cora were in Mrs. Hawthorne's kindergarten class together.

Liz knows how to put on a great party. Besides this spread, there was a burger truck out front, cooking delicious food to order.

They played in the pool - Cora was excited for a winning move in the game they were playing.

We mamas put our feet in the hot tub later in the evening.

Here were all the recent graduates!

The kids also played Jackbox games in the house. 

On Sunday, we celebrated Father's Day with hosting dinner for my parents. I gave both dads here a soap from Bubbs and Drizzle, the local family-owned shop.

On Sunday morning, our church had a display of some cool cars for the dads to admire.
Also Sunday, we realized our air conditioner wasn't working right. Uh oh.

Days Out

Violet and I had a day out on Thursday, heading up to Leona Valley to pick cherries. Last summer, we enjoyed several adventures out of SClarita, and we want to continue the tradition this year. 

We went to an orchard we'd never been to; it was a great experience. 

Very yummy!

We also went to a little art gallery in the tiny town of Leona Valley.

On Friday, we went to a college in Van Nuys where Cora and Melanie are planning to take an acting class with a favorite teacher of Melanie's. Cora drove, getting some good experience on the freeways. 

After speaking to people in the admissions office, we went to a Japanese BBQ restaurant for lunch with Melanie.

On Friday night, I went to an old movie theater in Fillmore to watch an old movie - a classic film noir called Double Indemnity. I went with Colleen and Rigo. It was a great film, in a cool setting; I'm guessing this theatre showed the movie when it was new in 1944.

(Stace played soccer.)

Also this week, Violet has been having creative fun with henna. And on Monday, she got together with her friend Sofia at the boba place, and then they came here and made cookies. Their friend Lea was overseas visiting family.

Graduation Celebration - and Headshots

On Tuesday, we hosted Cora's school theatre friends and their families, for a little theatre-focused graduation party.

It was fantastic to finally host again after the construction! We worked hard to get the yard looking decent.

Here's the "adults" table...

...and the students and teachers section.

Jarod brought all his karaoke gear, at our request, so anyone who wanted to could sing. 

This was actually the impetus for the gathering - the students always have a karaoke party during the last theatre class of the year. While we set up the banquet, some of the moms were saying that they'd love to do karaoke, too. 

Even though I have NO desire or business singing with a mic, I loved helping make it happen.

 And these guys could sing! 

While we're on the subject of theatre, here are a few of the headshots Melanie took of Cora.

And, just for fun - this photo came up in my Facebook Memories, from the day Cora played Dorothy in Wizard of Oz when she was 7. 

After the show, when she'd changed clothes but still had on a bit of makeup, my Dad took this photo of her. It reminded me strongly of this famous shot of Vivien Leigh from Gone with the Wind.

I thought one of the more recent shots could work in a similar way. 

Maybe not as close in the expression, but not bad.

Mt. Pinos Camping

 Wheeler Gorge was (again) booked up, but we made our annual (much belated) birthday camping trip over the weekend with our favorite camping friends.

McGill is up past Frazier Park on Mount Pinos, only about an hour from home. It's a big tree area that I know as a cross-country skiing region in the winter.

It was beautiful, and we had perfect weather. 

We four adults took a nice hike on a trail that connected to the campground.

The wildflowers were amazing!

Colleen looked them all up, and this one was called a snow plant, which is like a fungus.

Our home away from home!

We played campfire games, and laughed a lot.

Marshmallows and s'mores - you can see how huge the sites are, with how far away our campfire was from their trailer, and then our trailer behind again. The large sites made for very quiet mornings, which was so peaceful and relaxing.

Packed up and ready to go! It was nice having such a short drive back home.

End of Year Things

We met up with Grandma and Grandpa for breakfast Saturday morning to give Cora her gifts - she was too worn out to do it Friday night. You can see she's still a bit tired here. 

She later went to Logan's house to play D&D, and went again on Sunday.

Stace rewatched the Star Wars movies on Saturday, while Violet was unfortunately getting sick. 

On Saturday afternoon, Dinorah invited over several of us moms with graduating seniors, to catch up and reminisce. 
 

It was lovely, especially with catching up with some ladies I hadn't seen in a while.

On Sunday, Stace and I went to Glendale to Ellie's dance recital, and after, we all went to a nearby Foster's Freeze for a snack. I was excited to get a chocolate-dipped cone, since they're now hard to find up here in SClarita.

On Monday morning, I met up with a number of parents and graduating seniors at their elementary school. Other schools do this, and this is the first year it's happened here - the graduates are invited back for a special ceremony, to honor them and to give the elementary kids an example to aspire to.

We're holding signs with our kid's 6th grade photo! Such a sweet gesture.

 The students were introduced to the whole school at the weekly morning ceremony, and then got to spend some time playing on the playground. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if they were wearing their caps and gowns, as I've seen happen at other schools. But, Cora's old high school hadn't graduated yet, and the students didn't actually have their gowns!

It was great seeing these ladies again... 

...and these students, all grown up! I knew many of these kids so well just six years ago.

*Don't bother looking for Cora in there - she didn't go. She isn't nostalgic or social, and she was well into her summer schedule of sleeping well past the 8:00 meeting time here.

Also this week, Violet's freshman year came to an end! She did very well in her grades and is glad to be on break, too. Especially since she spent much of the week feeling ill.