A Grownup Desk

For the past four or five years, this lovely wooden play kitchen has entertained the girls and their friends in the corner of our playroom.

Genia graciously gave it to us when her children were done with it, and it came filled with wooden food sets.

Now, with the girls both in school, the kitchen doesn't get much action, except when Violet has friends over. (And then, Cora complains that she's the one cleaning it all up.)

Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty rearranged their furniture a few weeks ago and offered us their corner desk, but I said we had no room for it. Then, after thinking about it, I realized the right thing to do would be to send the lovely kitchen on to a family with younger children.

So, the kitchen is moving on to some dear friends, and our playroom is growing up.

Stace took apart the kitchen for easier transport, and somehow Violet got stuck! Silly girl.

Thankfully, Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty hadn't gotten rid of the desk yet. The girls helped put it together when we got it back home.

It's a perfect fit in the corner, and both girls can sit together and do their homework. Sometimes there is even room for a cat.

Cora and Violet are both very excited about having a desk for homework, and if an assignment runs into dinner, they don't have to pack up when it's time to eat.

Beach Sunset

Nice shot, Grandpa.

Labor Day Fun

 While the girls were having fun at the fair, Stace and I took advantage of the freedom to celebrate our anniversary a little early.

Thanks to generous gifts from our parents, we enjoyed a nice meal out, even springing for wine to share.

With the girls gone overnight (thanks, Mom and Dad!), we even rented a movie and could have the volume up high while we watched it.

We took advantage of a kid-free morning by taking the MGB out for a drive down the pretty roads, ending up at a classic breakfast joint.


















We enjoyed a yummy breakfast of eggs, hash browns and biscuits 'n gravy.

We then ran a few errands, and started dreaming about future house projects at Lowe's. Married 12 years, of course our dates involve Lowe's or Home Depot!

 On Sunday, we went back to Ventura - yes, we've been blessed to spend a lot of time with Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty the past month.

They had a Labor Day barbecue for us, my parents and another set of family friends. We spent the night, and spent our Labor Day off at the beach with the girls.

 Violet had fun boogie-boarding, and enjoyed pretending to surf by standing on her little board.

 There were times she had a ride standing up, when the wave came up, lifted and carried her forward.



















Cora continued her surfing education, and had a blast.




















Here's a video clip of her standing on the board, and one of both girls having fun...

Fun week, fun fair

Cora had a softball tryout on Sunday for the Hart fall league. Hart offers baseball and softball, and in the spring it's a highly competitive (and expensive) place to play.

The fall is lower-key, and more instructional in nature. Cora is excited to give a new sport a try, and Violet will be playing T-ball this fall at Hart as well.
We'll find out which teams they're on in the coming weeks.

Violet's class had "purple day" this week, the perfect day for our Violet girl. She had so many purple clothing items to choose from. She painted purple seahorses for inclusion on the class collage.

















On Friday afternoon, Cora and Violet went to the L.A. County Fair with Grandma and Grandpa. The girls had never been, and since my parents go every year, they thought the girls should have the fair experience.

In one of the exhibition halls, Cora got to suggest the flavor for the Vitamix lady's next frozen fruit concoction.

Yum! (Violet, sadly, missed out on the fruity goodness. After an early school morning and a long car ride, she fell asleep as they arrived at the fair and had a stroller nap for the first hour of fair fun.)

Cora made a joyful noise on the drum set in another area of the exhibition hall.












After hours on your feet exploring exhibits, including farm animals, more exotic animals and hand crafts, the foot massage machines provide welcome relief.

















Fair food fun - roasted corn and a huge turkey leg were the winners for Cora.

 You have to go on at least one ride at the fair, right?

Surfs Up!

Last weekend we spent Saturday afternoon at the beach in Ventura.

It was a lovely day and the water was nice and warm. So warm in fact that even Lisa ventured into the surf to play.

Violet enjoyed boogie boarding, or floating around on a boogie board in the water, as it lapped up and down the beach. I tried to take her out a bit further but she is still scared of the breaking waves and preferred "surfing" her way. She had a lot of fun.

Last year we bought a 5ft 8inch soft top board for the girls to learn to surf on. Cora showed interest but did not enjoy getting knocked around by the waves and being dunked.

But this year has been a different story. On our beach trips this summer she has ventured out into the deeper water and bigger waves on the boogie board and hasn't seemed bothered with the water crashing over her.

We took the board last weekend for another try. She practiced on the waves after they had broken. Popping up was slow to start but Cora kept persevering and got quicker and quicker until...

... She's Up!

After she had got up once she kept trying and continued to ride the waves into the beach.

I was so proud of my little girl.

Cora has now got the bug. She wants to go surfing all the time and has been asking when our next beach trip will be.

After our long beach afternoon we walked to our beach house, otherwise known as Bill and Patty's, where Bill make us a gorgeous pizza. Just what was needed as we were all very hungry.

It was a really enjoyable day. I'm glad the sea was warm enough that Lisa would get in and have fun with me and the girls.

Week in Review

Stace was able to take the MG out early Sunday morning for a long canyon ride.

Ain't it purty?  It's nice for him to have it up and running, and he's looking forward to the cooler days of autumn when he can take it to work more often. (No air conditioning can be rough here in the summer!)

After our morning walk, Violet and I tidied out the garage so we could put my car in, out of the heat wave we're experiencing.

Violet decided that SHE was going to sweep out the leaves and bits of who knows what. I was so proud of her, since she isn't usually the first girl eager to work hard like this. She was proud of herself, too (though she wanted to photo to just be of the work itself, not herself).












On Monday evening, we went to Lazy Dog so Melanie could be our server there for the last time. She has a new job at a restaurant in Pasadena, much closer to her home in Glendale.
This week she worked her final shifts at her restaurant of the last two-plus years. We'll miss seeing her here!

Violet's homework this week was to create a Book Box, so she has a spot to collect all the books she makes in class. She took it to school Thursday, and then it came back home so we can reread her books at home. It also was "Green Day" at school.

Violet is still loving kindergarten, especially the social aspect. Ahem. She has received numerous official warnings about talking too much, or on one occasion, making a distracting noise. But, she is quick to reassure us, she hasn't lost her penny yet!

Not that we expected Violet to be just like Cora in school, but Cora probably had just a few warnings her entire kindergarten year - she was the kid "shushing" everyone around her when they were talking out of turn.

Mrs. Hawthorne assured me that Violet is fine, and I don't need to worry about her behavior in class, warnings aside.


On Thursday evening, Stace and I went to "Back to School Night," where we got to meet the girls' teachers and hear what they will be doing this year.

We knew what to expect in kindergarten, especially with Violet having the same teacher Cora had. But third grade - whoa! It is much more intense than second grade. Cora will be learning how to write in cursive, how to multiply, how to make Power Point presentations, how to write and present book reports, and how to type.

This page about her family was up on the wall. Cora wrote, "Mom, my mom loves me and I love her. She enjoys going to the ice-rink with me. I love her. Dad, we work on cars and play soccer together. We like brekfast at Carles Jr. Violet, we fight and argue but as a sister... I will always love HER!"

We all love you, too, Cora!

Here is poor Sebastian.
He and Spencer got out Monday night, and they didn't come in when we went to bed. This has happened a couple of times before, and it's always nerve-wracking.

Stace and I awoke to the sound of a cat fight, and once again, it was the evil black-and-white long-haired cat from the next block. He likes to come harass our cats in our yard. Stace broke up the fight and scared off Evil Cat.

A few days later, Cora noticed that Seb was hurt, and sure enough, he had two bite marks, one by his ear and one under his chin. We went to the vet, and the wound under his chin was infected. The vet shaved and cleaned the wounds, and gave him a shot of antibiotics. Now, I hate that Evil Cat $135 more.

Thankfully, he is healing well now.

Flying High

We headed to the Camarillo Air Show on Saturday, where we enjoyed flying displays of WWII-era planes, modern stunt planes, and the latest in tilt rotor technology.

It was warm, breezy and sunny, and one of the vendor booths offered inexpensive hats. The girls and I all bought a new hat, each with a handy chin strap. We're posing in front of a P-51 Mustang.

The V-22 Osprey was the tilt rotor craft, kind of a hybrid between an airplane and helicopter. Used by the U.S. Marine Corps, it's a vehicle I've heard about for years, and was fascinating to see overhead.

Stacey's company provides some of the hydraulics for it.






The stunt planes wowed the crowd with their aerobatics.

Nice photo, huh? Thanks to Aunt Patty for supplying nearly all of these photos. We me up with her and Uncle Bill, along with Grandma and Grandpa, at the show.






Violet especially loved this purple stunt plane - the color isn't quite visible here - which had a female pilot.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty's friend Lt. Hal Wilder was a special guest at the air show, where he had a table set up in the WWII hangar, with his memorabilia and self-published memoirs.

Hal, as he asks to be called, was a B-24 Liberator bombardier in Europe. Below are his cotter pins, from one of the bombs.

 The B-25 Mitchell Bomber, the  WWII plane that took part in the Doolittle Raid on Japan,  participated in a series of fly-bys at the air show.

Here is the B-25, flanked by various WWII-era fighter planes. They were beautiful to watch overhead.











This P-51 Mustang  has the red tail markings of the famous Tuskegee Fighter Squadron, made up of African-Americans during the segregated days of WWII.

We all enjoyed our afternoon at the air show, and afterwards went to Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty's for dinner, with Hal and his son. It was a special time together.

Week In Review

Along with letters, numbers and shapes, Violet's class is learning colors.

Tuesday was "red day," when the students were encouraged to wear red and they learned how to write the word, too. Lucky for Violet, with all the hand-me-downs she has been given, she was able to dress in red from head-to-toe.

Violet has enjoyed an easy transition into starting school. She hasn't cried once, and is happy to go off to the playground when I drop her off.

Thursday was "blue day," and Violet and Melanie both went with navy dresses. With three full kindergarten classes, it is so nice that these girls are in class together.

Our routine so far has been to walk to school with Cora, and then take an exercise walk with our friends, including Melanie and her mom Christina. Then, we go home, clean up and prepare for Violet's school day.

When Violet is in school at 11, I have 3 1/2 hours to do errands and work on projects at home. So far, I'm really enjoying this new schedule. Having Violet home in the mornings is very nice for both of us.

The other afternoon, I decided to read to Violet on her chair, and we were joined by Sebastian. My lap really isn't big enough for both of them, but we made do.

Cora likes to text her Daddy in the mornings if she has enough time. She also likes to take silly photos and make them even sillier. The things these kids know how to do, that we parents can't figure out!

Violet gets out of class 10 minutes before Cora. On one of those afternoons, she found a praying mantis (in the bottom of the photo). Soon all the kindergartners nearby were checking it out. Violet, with all her animal knowledge from Wild Kratts, knew that they are good bugs and not to be stomped upon.

On Friday evening, we all went to In-n-Out for dinner - best burgers and fries around!

Beach Fun

 After three whole days of school, it was time for a bit of R&R, for us girls at least.

We headed up to Ventura Friday afternoon evening, to enjoy Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty's hospitality and get in a little beach time.

School may be back in session, but the heat is still here. (Actually, we've had a pretty nice summer, but this weekend we're getting serious heat, over 105 for several days in a row - all the more reason to go to the coast!)

Aunt Patty and I took the girls to the beach in the afternoon, while Stace and Uncle Bill and my Dad worked on installing a sliding glass door in their dining area, where only a window had been.

 Cora had a lot of fun boogie boarding, catching quite a few waves. She didn't even cry when her thigh caught the sharp part of someone else's board, and she ended up with a long bleeding scratch.

 Voila!





















Stace took the girls to the beach Sunday morning, and they stopped at the donut store on the way.

I had gone home Saturday evening for our annual Mom2Mom leadership meeting, and then to help in the church nursery Sunday morning. Then I headed back up to Ventura to hang out.

After lunch, Uncle Bill and Stace got the kayaks to the little beach near their house, and we went off with the girls.

Stacey, Violet and I went in our two-man, and Uncle Bill and Cora each handled a one-man kayak. Yes, Cora was off kayaking by herself! Wish we had a photo, but with the water, it seemed too risky. She did so well, and we all had a nice time.

And a holdover photo from earlier this week - after picking up the girls from school Wednesday, we celebrated a good start to the year with ice cream. We went with a group of friends, and encountered dozens of kids and parents with the same idea filling Baskin Robbins.