First Grade!

 Here she is -Cora Rose, the first-grader. 

She's proudly showing off her backpack - at her school, the kindergartners can take only a lunch bag, and they'd carry home their homework folder. Having a backpack is a big deal.

 Yes, like all parents, we think, "How did this happen?"

Cora was very excited for her first day on Tuesday.
We found out Monday night that she is in a class with the first-grade teacher all the parents love; plus Chris and Sophia are in the same class.

She woke up really early, around 6:20, and quickly remembered what day it was. She shouted "SCHOOL!!" and hurried down the hall, pumping her fist.

Our morning continued smoothly, and seeing old friends once we got to campus made it all the better.

 From left, we have Gianna (who was in Chris and Johnny's class last year); Sophia H., Cora and Sophia M.

 Here is Cora introducing herself to Mrs. Vasquez, who went down the line to speak to each child individually.

 Bye, Mom!

Unlike last year, we had no tears, no anxiety, only smiles as Cora went into her new classroom.

And then, Violet and I were off to the PTSA's annual welcome-back breakfast with our friend Shannon and Sarah.

A bit of housecleaning, grocery shopping, lunch and a quick nap for Violet, and it was time to head back to school.

Cora was just a little bit happy to see us.

Then, she was quite decidedly unhappy that I had walked to pick her up. It was warm, yes, but not too hot, in my mind. But, Cora had already had lunch recess outside, and she'd been standing it the sun as she waited for dismissal.

On Day 1, that was her main complaint about 1st Grade - it was too hot. (Kindergarteners got out at 11:35 last year, before our heat really takes off.)

 We had a sleeping Violet by the time we got home - adjusting her nap so much earlier so we can pick up Cora will be just that, a big adjustment.

And of course, being a Tuesday, we had ice cream as a special first-day treat.

At Summer's End

Summer is about over - and by that, I mean Cora's break from school, of course. 

The season will continue a while longer, and of course living here, the heat lasts into October. At least we can go to the pool and the beach after school.

Anyway. Cora, Chris and David went to Camp Clarita for the last two weeks of summer, and on four of those days, Violet went to camp, too.  Cora enjoyed camp, and even went on a field trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo.  Other than the field trips, her camp day went from 9 to 4, with swimming daily after lunch.  She says that her days were too long, and she wished she could have seen me more. Maybe we'll give it a miss next year.

Violet, meanwhile, loved every day of camp with Ms. Diane and Miss Emily.

On the last day, Violet (pictured here with her awesome handmade mask and crown) said how sad she was that camp was over. She is so ready for Terrific Tots!







Cousin Alison flew down to visit Bill and Patty for a week, and she and Aunt Patty stopped by for a few hours on our last day of summer break. She helped the girls make this glitteriffic creation from a palm frond.





One one of the too-few occasions when we were home all day, I brought out the laundry basket full of wet clothes. This little one insisted on pausing her playtime with Cora to help out.

I'll end with a couple of "isms":
The night before her camp field trip to the zoo, Cora was very nervous and tearful about being so far away from home, for so long. (Her drop-off time was 7:30 and they weren't back until 5:15.)
The next evening, I asked how it went.
"Oh, it was really good! And I'm not even being sarcastic, like I usually am," she replied.

And, here's a snippet from breakfast a few weeks ago:
Cora: "Violet, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an engineer."
Violet: "I want to be a doggy, in a doggy costume."
Cora: "No, not for Halloween, for a job."
Violet: "I want to be a doggy. I CAN be a doggy."

Swimming lessons

 Our little fish attended a two-week session of swim lessons, the final two weeks of her summer break from school.

She just loves swimming, and has become very good at it; it's amazing to remember how two short years ago she screamed her way through a lesson.

She was in the Level 4 class, "stroke improvement," and by the end she was able to do the butterfly stroke, backstroke, breast stroke, side stroke and of course the freestyle/crawl.

With the freestyle, she learned to breathe by tipping her head up to the side; she had been putting her head up forward.

She was the youngest and smallest in her class, and could outswim several of them. She certainly can swim a lot better than me!

When it was time to collect rings from the bottom of the 9 1/2-foot deep end, she'd swim straight to the bottom, and then along the bottom until she got to the ring. And she can swim across our pool without coming up for air, and her dives are beautiful.

Her reward for doing so well in her class was a diving mask. She was so excited about it, because she can now do her underwater flips without water going into her nose.

Well done, Cora. We're so proud of you!

Music fun with familiar faces

 Thursday was a fun day filled with music and dear friends.

We started off with Colleen, Lucas and Liana meeting at our house for a group field trip to the Hollywood Bowl. There, we attended Summer Sounds with some other friends, including Juliana, Maya and Natalia.

This time around, the children's music/theater program featured Los Pinguos, an Argentinean band that just so happened to include John Roberts, when he lived locally.

It was fun seeing his musician friends, even if he wasn't there. Cora and Lucas sat together with all the children, center front, while the little girls stayed near Colleen and me on the sidelines. After the show, we introduced ourselves to the band and got some photos.

Then, we had our picnic lunch before heading over to the children's craft area.

 Liana, Lucas and Violet chose to decorate leather wristbands, while Cora made a leather pendant.

 When we returned from Hollywood, we all went swimming together.

I mentioned to Colleen that we had plans to go out to see another band that evening, and my sister was going to babysit. She and Rigo were up for a night out, too, and Melanie was happy to have all four kids, so we got together again that evening.



 A few days earlier, I'd received an email from John, that he was flying in to perform Thursday night with his other main L.A. band, Makina Loca. They were playing in a summer concert series at Culver City's city hall, not far from LAX.









Stace and I were excited and happy to go and see him again, especially with him playing in a show before our 10 o'clock bedtime.

We really enjoyed catching up with him; hopefully he can come into L.A. periodically, and keep playing early-evening shows, just for us.

Our car ride with Colleen and Rigo was just as fun. I hadn't laughed that hard in months. It felt like we were back in college, going out to see shows in L.A. with friends, no carseats in the car.

Welcome home

Wednesday was the day - the day  our two new cars were delivered. I must admit, I was pretty excited to get the phone call to meet Stace and the auto transport man at my parents' house.

Why my parents' house?

Because they have a big side yard with a covered lean-to, which a prior owner built to store a boat. You'd better believe Stace has had his eyes on that empty concrete pad for years now.

See, our HOA just wouldn't look too kindly on cars like this on our pleasant cul-de-sac. The parts car could use a few parts, that's for sure.

 Here's Stacey steering the '67 off the trailer.

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 Stace was amazed that all the little details worked out in his plan to bring the cars 300 miles here, and push the non-runner up into the garage (and later into the lean-to).









 Ain't she pretty? It's easy to point out a few flaws that Stace will want to fix over the years, but we're both really pleased to have this baby in the family.

Speaking of babies, ours were disappointed to learn there isn't a  back seat, much less, room for a car seat. It'll be a while before Cora and Violet will get a ride on the open road - Violet actually burst into tears when she understood this.

Of course, having this car does beg the question: what will Stace do with all his free time? Looking up cars for sale on Craigslist, Ebay and Auto Trader Classic has been a time-consuming hobby over the past year or so.

Hardly taking his eyes off the computer, Stace's immediate response? "Do you think I should buy these wire wheels? They're only asking $500."

Stace's big weekend

Stace had quite a weekend.

It started on Friday afternoon, with phone calls between Uncle Bill and a guy in Northern California who was selling the type of car Stace has been dreaming about.

This lead to more and more phone calls and a heckuva lot of thinking and figuring out for Stace... questions about the car itself, about auto transport companies, storage facilities, towing companies, prices for all of the above, along with the value of the car in question.

Stace took a break Saturday to go with his work friends to see two football matches at Dodger Stadium, part of the "International Champions Cup" tournament. Stace watched Real Madrid beat Everton and the Galaxy beat Juventus; this was a day he'd been anticipating for a couple of months.

Then, he was up and out around dawn Sunday with Uncle Bill, for a grand car-buying adventure.

They traveled over 300 miles to Angels Camp, California, up in the Sierra Nevada foothills near the northern entrance to Yosemite National Park.

Around noon they arrived at a 20-acre ranch full of interesting things, including barns filled with things used in guitar-making,cars, tractors and motorbikes.

Stace test drove the 1967 MGB that had sparked this expedition, and it passed.

It's exactly what he's been looking for: a classic roadster that's good enough to serve as a daily driver, but still needs the finishing touches. (Not to mention we can't afford the mint-condition models!)

Included in the sale was a 1970s MGB parts car - it's missing an interior but has lots of parts that might come in handy for the '67. And, after they agreed on a price and shook on the deal, Don filled Stace's car with lots of MG parts that he won't be needing anymore. Nice one.

Stace and Bill drove the blue car to a storage facility, and left the parts car on the ranch. Stace arranged an auto transporter to pick up both cars a few days later.

Then, the men got a bite to eat and checked out Angels Camp, a town made famous in Mark Twain's story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."

It's an adorable historic town; maybe we can go back someday to visit as a family, and even stay the night. The scenery was beautiful too.

The men were back in Valencia at 11:30 p.m., in bed after midnight; Uncle Bill crashed at our house. Both of them were up and out before 7 a.m. Monday morning.

And with that, we're a four-car family. When I told Cora about it at bedtime, she was incredulous.  "Why? We don't need that many cars," she said, before stopping to think. "Wait! One for me, one for Violet!"

Our weekend, Part I

This weekend was an interesting one, to say the least. Stace and I do most things together as a family, but this weekend, we went separate ways much of the time. So, here's our weekend, His and Hers edition...

On Friday evening, Stace stayed with the little girls while the big girls (and my dad, and Nick, and 200 others) went to see Melanie in a final performance of Hair. The theater troupe she's involved with put on Hair last summer in Hollywood; in January in San Francisco; and these four shows in Newhall as part of a theater festival in Towsley Canyon. I'm so proud of Melanie. She's truly gifted and it was spectacular to watch her shine so brightly as Jeanie, the pregnant character in the show. Here, we're with the actor who play Woof.

Auntie Linda and Mikayla came up to visit and see the show, much to Cora's delight. Cora adores Mikayla, and asks quite regularly about when they will see each other again. Hard to believe she's 14 - so grown up! She was the 4-year-old flower girl at our wedding, with her sister Noelle, who was then 8.
Mikayla slept on Cora's trundle, and Linda stayed at my mom and dad's house.

 

 On Saturday, the girls played with Mikayla and then with each other for much of the day, before Stace took them for a quick dip in the pool.

Then, he was off to see a couple of football/soccer games at Dodger Stadium with top-tier clubs. More on that in his own post.

After Violet's nap, the girls decided to play dress-up, with Cora taking on the major role of helping Violet get dressed and prettied with hair and jewelry.

You can imagine my joy at overhearing them, and then spying on this scene.



 


So pretty.

They are fairies, and were playing an involved make-believe game, until Violet decided she needed Cora's bag of pixie dust. Cora disagreed, and let the screaming games begin.

On Sunday, Stace was off early on a grand adventure. The girls and I went to church and then to Sam's Club, a membership-based warehouse store like Costco.

Every year, they allow nonmembers to shop too, so we went and munched on samples and snagged some bargains. In particular, the honey, vanilla extract and chocolate chips were great deals.

Later, at home for Violet's nap, Cora dressed up in Ave's candy corn witch costume, and ran around on a broom. This one's for you, Ave!

After dinner, we went to Kohl's for a bit of back-to-school shopping. Combining three different coupons, plus Kohl's "no tax" weekend that took an extra 10% off, we bought Cora two shirts, a dress, a package of socks and a backpack for $16.50. Yes, we did!

Cora selected a Hello Kitty backpack with attached hood. The hood seems strange to me, but she thought it was just great. Violet also really wanted a backpack for preschool, but Cora offered to let her use the new little rucksack she got in England, and that made Vi very happy. (Sue, Cora's also used the little one for camp and swimming lessons every day!)

Busy week of fun

 This week, we spent time with our friend Christy and her boys; we hosted a pool playdate; Cora and Violet had summer camp; Cora had swimming lessons; and we visited with Juliana and her girls at the Aquatic Center.

Whew. We need a rest - good thing school starts in a little over a week...

Christy and her sons were on their way from the San Jose area to Phoenix to visit her sister, but her sister's roommate was sick, so they stayed with us a few days.

The children all had a lot of fun together, especially Cora and William, who have been friends since they were tiny babies.

Violet loved playing with 15-month-old Timothy and helping him pet the cat.

We all enjoyed ice cream Tuesday night, when Stace tried to give 3-year-old Dominic tips on how to eat his cone as it dripped all over his face. It was a cute scene.










Also Tuesday, we had some school friends over for a pool playdate. At the end-of-school picnic, several moms were trying to come up with a date when we could all get together, and this particular Tuesday was the first date we were all in town.

It was fun seeing everyone again, and catching up on our summer vacations. Most of us had gone somewhere interesting - the Dominican Republic, Florida, Yosemite, New York...

On Wednesday, Christy and the boys left very early in the morning to start on their long drive, and the girls had camp. Cora went on a field trip with camp to the Aquatic Center, for swimming and then "mad science" at the nearby sports complex. She came home with silly putty she made herself.

Thursday was a nice calm day, with a restful morning at home. We met Juliana, Natalia and Maya at the Aquatic Center after lunch for a fun couple of hours of playtime.

 Violet entertained herself at this contraption for a long, long time. She loved being in control of the water's flow.

Also this week, Cora had swim lessons at the city pool. She's working on learning new strokes, and she's doing very well.