Week in Review

 These girls have grown to be such good friends. It's a delight to see. Stace and I are fortunate parents.

Stace and I snuck out for a drink Friday night - we love Pocock Brewing Co.! They have an amazing selection of brews, and great pizza and soft pretzels too. I always enjoy a flight of tasters.

I was really excited when Violet said she'd like a haircut, so I immediately booked it. She has so much thick hair! Very pretty.

You can see that it was plenty long before, and with a bit of curl, making it hard to keep tangle-free.

I always have ideas of our family playing games together, rather than staring at screens after dinner. Every now and then, I get my wish fulfilled. 

Cora always wins. Always. 

I was able to get to a Dodger game with my parents on Tuesday! Always good to be back.

Sporty Week in Review

Spencer thought we might like this baby dove, so he brought it into the yard, with a few puncture wounds. We tried our best, with water, food and a safe spot in the bathroom. Sadly, after a few days, it passed on. I weighed it, and found out online that it was only 9 or 10 days old, so it was still young enough to require mama to feed it with chewed up seed. Not exactly something we were capable of doing...
 

My parents got Dodger tickets for Wednesday night's game, and invited me to come along. This photo shows A.J. Pollock hitting a home run. I've been having pretty good luck when I take photos or video of Dodger hitters!

The reason my dad picked this particular Wednesday night was because of THIS giveaway to the first 40,000 fans - this replica World Series ring! We were fortunate to get their early enough to get ours. They are beautiful, and weighty! No cheap plastic here.

Violet and I are enjoying her Friday half-days - hard to believe this part of our school life is in its final year!

This week, we took her coupon for a free mini pizza to Pizza Hut for lunch.

On Friday night, Cora and I went to her first high school football game. What an amazing thing, seeing all these happy kids together, outside in the stands, cheering on their team! This didn't happen last school year at all.

High school football happened all over the United States in the fall, but not in California. Finally, California allowed for a very limited season in the spring, but fans in the stands were very limited. I think it was two people per player? Anyway, it was GREAT to get this bit of normalcy back. 

Stace came by after his own football game - well, the OTHER football!

I snuck this pic of Cora and her friends - she's the one who looks like a hand is coming out from behind her head.

She took this silly shot of hanging with her friends. I'm so happy she's getting a bit more of a normal life again! Fingers crossed it lasts!

Blue Heaven on Earth!

For the first time in a a couple of years, I got to cheer on my Dodgers in person! Stace was given his work's tickets for Saturday's game, and JT and Jim were able to join us. 

My World Champions beat the Chicago Cubs in most-exciting fashion, with a walk-off win via a Cody Bellinger home run! (Walk-off wins are when you win in the bottom of the inning with the go-ahead runs, and can basically "walk off" the field because the game is then over.)

These are our "We Won" smiles, while Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." song finished playing.

Our state "reopened" June 15, with removing nearly all the state-level mandates regarding Covid-19, including capacity restrictions at outdoor sporting events. 

Dodger Stadium has undergone a big facelift in the year since fans were allowed in, with a new concourse behind the outfield pavilions. We enjoyed looking at the new eateries, bars, seating and shops, along with the sweet photo opps.

Stace's work's seats are great...other than the warm sun on this particular day and time. We had a bit of shade in the beginning, and then the sun moved. We stuck it out for a while, and then took breaks up in the concourse, which mercifully was much cooler.
 

I'm not a "film every moment" kind of person, but I started videoing at the crucial moment right before Belli hit his game-winning home run. It was a 3-1 count, great for the hitter, and I just had a feeling it would be a great time for him to do something big. Boy, did he! I was so thrilled to have been able to capture the moment for myself! Hope you enjoy. 

City Walk Fun

With the Dodgers the champions of the baseball world, AND with Universal City Walk offering free parking to entice shopping, we made a family day Saturday to visit the Dodger Clubhouse Store.

With few ways to celebrate our Dodgers communally, many people had the same idea. We waited about 90 minutes in (a socially distanced) line to enter the shop (where the number of patrons was strictly limited).

Nearly everyone was in their Dodger gear! Employees said they've been packed every day since the playoffs.

A big benefit of having big kids - we handed them some money and off they went! They had fun shopping and getting snacks - boba and mini doughnuts.

Like all California theme parks, Universal Studios has been closed since March. 
 

It was finally our turn to enter the store, a treasure trove of Dodger paraphernalia. It took a while to figure out what all we wanted to buy, to remember this special year forever. 

In this pic, you can see Stace wearing his new World Series champion hat, and me wearing my champion face covering. It doesn't get more 2020 than a celebratory face mask.

Here was my big purchase - a jersey, with additional World Series and Champions patches. Expensive, but I'll have it forever!

The girls had a GREAT time shopping in the Universal shop, with its huge Harry Potter section. Between having dinner, having snacks, and shopping, we enjoyed two-thirds of what we would have done at Universal Studios, with no admission charge.

The girls have been watching way too much of the Simpsons lately, so they checked out the Simpsons gear, too.

We all had such a fun day together. Cora, who doesn't love leaving SClarita, or being around a lot of people, loved it and wants to come back again. Normally parking is $25 - crazy - so free parking is a big savings. And it's only a half hour away.

My heart is full!

(And, for the record, this is Violet and Cora. When I posted this pic, many people thought it was me and Cora! She's taller than me, but not by this much!)

World Series Win! And Halloween Happenings!

This was the fateful week, one that Los Angeles has been waiting more than 30 years for. Our Los Angeles Dodgers WON the World Series again! 

After falling just short in 2017 - and later finding out that the Astros cheated to attain their victory - and then losing again in 2018 - the Dodgers finally closed out the season as the ultimate winners. 

The team closed out the series with a fourth win Tuesday night over the Tampa Bay Rays. Yes, I teared up, especially when seeing pitcher Clayton Kershaw finally hold that trophy. 

Such a strange year - 60 games instead of 162, no fans during the season at Dodger Stadium, nearly the entire postseason played in a "bubble" in Dallas. At least, Texas is much more open than California, and the stadium was allowed to have fans up to 25% capacity. So, some very fortunate Dodger fans were able to see the wins in person.

I celebrated with a morning-after coffee from Starbucks on Wednesday.

Later Wednesday, we went to VUMC for a modified, drive-through Trunk or Treat event. We were one of a few cars, and the event was open only to the church, not the community like normal.

Violet had the idea of a dragon theme for the MG this year. The dragons had glowing eyes! We had to have a contact-free candy distribution method, so Stace also made a dragon that could shoot candy out its mouth, through a tube.

Cora dressed as a pirate for the trunk or treat. She was supposed to be working as a witch for a drive-through Halloween event all week, but the event was canceled after the props were damaged in heavy winds. She was really disappointed, because she was excited to have something so fun to do. 

We got to see Kelly, Noah and Ethan! And the dragon-shooter worked!

Violet and Liana had a fun night, working at their families' cars, and then going around the event themselves.
 

On Friday, Violet's class had a Halloween "lunch bunch" online meet up. I'll not go on about how sad it is that she's not having a Halloween party with her class! I love being involved with those.

We met up with Christina and Melanie at Quigley Canyon Friday, and this time we saw a family of deer. Two adults and two young ones. 

Here was how cool Cora looked for the event that ended up getting canceled. 

My mom had been so excited, too, since Fright Fest has been canceled. Oh well, next year!

Week in Review

My parents took home a new dog recently, so we went over to meet her. Jake, their 15-year-old Golden, died a few weeks ago, and Benny was sad and lonely. Enter Summer, a 14-month-old Golden. She is a sweetie!

While we were at their house, Violet painted these blocks of wood, and then put them on our paseo. They joined similarly painted Halloween rocks left by others in our neighborhood.

 

Violet has been very artsy lately. We bought canvases, and here is one of her recent paintings.

This one she entered in the school Reflections show (which will be all online this year, naturally).

The Dodgers being in the playoffs is just exhausting! World Series again, BABY!

A particularly stressful game Saturday had me and Stace feeling like this!

Super Saturday

 We had a big day out Saturday, starting at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage before joining my parents at the Dodgers Fan Fest at the stadium.

Both outings were free! This particular weekend was a free museum day at dozens of locations around SoCal, and the Fan Fest is also free, a way to rouse interest in the coming season (with plenty of things available to purchase).

Here, Cora is getting a photo of her favorite piece at the Autry. She loves images of fire, and all things Native American.

 The museum is great - so many fascinating exhibits - with a nice garden area outside with native plants.

 Then, we headed around Griffith Park to the next big hill, to Blue Heaven on Earth. Here, you can see Cora, Grandpa, Violet and Stace heading to the main stage.

 A Dodger pitcher was being interviewed by the television guys who cover the team. It was an all-day event, so many players took the stage.

This event is normally within the stadium, but the Dodgers are doing major construction this off-season, so most of the festivities were in the parking lot. 

 A nice spot to relax.

Back in SClarita, we decided to go out to eat at Souplantation, a place we hadn't been in very long time - like, maybe since before Violet? The girls loved it, especially the tiny cones to end their night.

Then, we dropped Cora off at home and Stace and I took Violet to Valencia Methodist for the annual movie night. This year, they showed Toy Story 4, a film we hadn't seen, so it was nice to see it for free. What a fun day!