When he got home, we fulfilled Violet's request for another day trip to Ojai. I looked up hikes, and found a pretty area, but the recent rains swelled the stream into a river we weren't prepared to cross.
In the evening, we went to Wildwood Canyon for a walk.
We opened family gifts in the morning, spoke to Nan and Pop, and later welcomed our family here. Dinner was roast beef and many trimmings, provided by Melanie.
Violet loved the print Cora gave her, and the Oh Hellos CD of a popular album that we'd had trouble finding a few months ago.
Yes, it's that time of year, lots of wrapping and last-minute shopping to finish off the lists. I shopped, and Stace and I went together to the mall on Tuesday after dinner.
The girls are off this week, although Cora worked a few hours, helping build the set for the high school's next play. Nice that she's getting paid to do theatre stuff!
I met up with Christina for coffee and we got caught up.
Violet did archery one afternoon with Stace.
And we girls had dentist appointments.
On Christmas Eve, Stace worked a half day, and in the evening, we went to Valencia Hills church for service, complete with the traditional candlelight singing of Silent Night.
We then watched our favorite English historians celebrate the holiday, Tudor style.
We stopped first at the Nick Rail Music where our local store had sent our mandolin, because the strings expert works out of the Santa Barbara location. Unfortunately, he said the mandolin needed so many repairs, it would be more cost-effective to get a new one. But, we enjoyed looking around the store.
Across the street, we found a cool coffee place we'd never have known about, since this part of the city isn't where we normally head. Now that we know, we'll have to return next time we're in town.
