Delightful Disneyland

The girls had a short week of school - Veterans Day on Monday, then a half-day Thursday and no school Friday for parent-teacher conferences. (And then, the start of Thanksgiving Break! Woohoo!)

We took advantage of the half-day Thursday by taking a day trip to our favorite Orange County spot. This time, we went with Christina, Cami and Melanie.

Later, we briefly met up with Sue and Jen, and Sophia and Trent.

Christina and I rode the Cars ride with the girls, and I love this photo! We also rode the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, the Little Mermaid, and played in the Redwood Creek area.

Keeping it real, folks. Sometimes lines are boring and you just have to fight with your sister. This was while we waited to ride Monsters, Inc., a ride I hadn't been on in so many years, I barely remembered it.

Heading to Guardians with our fast passes - how sweet is this! It's lovely to be at Disneyland with Violet having a friend to pal around with, too.

Later, we made a short trip into Disneyland for dinner, Big Thunder Mountain, and a foray up Tarzan's Treehouse. It was another great day!

Week in Review

The girls' school had a Veterans Day celebration, and several grade levels offered a special tribute. Select third graders read a poem about a white table set up to remember our veterans, and Violet was chosen to read one of the stanzas.

Thanks to Elaine for grabbing this lovely photo! (I videoed it, but my angle wasn't great.)

We collected some awesomely huge zucchini that had secretively been growing into monsters. This big guy here made a veggie lasagna (with sliced zucchini serving as the pasta) and a big batch of muffins.

On Sunday evening, we went to an escape room with my family (though we missed Nick, who was working). This time around, we escaped! We did have quite a few hints, but it was still gratifying to make it out of the room on our own.

With the girls at Yass and Kelly's house, Stace and I were able to go out after our daring escape for a drink and bite to eat at a tiki bar Melanie loves. It was fun! 

The kiddos celebrated those who met their reading goals with a pizza party. I helped a bit, and got to watch Violet playing with her favorite buddy, Kat.

Stace and Violet surprised Cora and me when we came home late from her final football practice - they had made this beautiful Victoria sponge cake. Jam in the middle and powdered sugar on top, with a homemade stencil providing the pattern.

Cora's Big Thursday

The sixth graders in our school district get a special arts education - they have a 10-week course in hip hop and break dancing. It culminated in a "dance off," where the kids, divided into teams, went up two teams at a time to dance "against" each other on Thursday

 The kids seemed to either love it or hate it, and Cora was firmly in the "hate it" camp. She was very nervous about having to dance in front of everybody

But, soon enough, it was over. The best part was hearing all the kids in the audience - the whole sixth grade - chanting her name when it was her turn in the center.

I videoed the entire dance-off with Cora's team - it's about five minutes long. But we know several of the kids well - Sophia and Cami, Jake and Cooper - so I didn't want to cut the video up. Cora's part starts around minute 2:30.

After the hip hop, I was at school doing some volunteer work for the foundation, when Cora wandered into the office. Her teacher thought she sounded so bad with her cold that Cora should go home. 

I ended up finishing my work and taking Cora out around lunchtime, so we could see if some Vietnamese pho soup could help her throat. Cora already missed two days of school earlier in the week, and went to the doctor, with this cold.

Thankfully she was feeling well enough later to attend the school's Reflections Gala, where Cora won first prize for her writing piece. Now, she happened to be the only entrant in her age division, but still, Cora will take trophies when they are offered!

The theme was "Heroes Around Me," and Cora wrote about how firefighters are heroes.

Jake came with us, and we all enjoyed seeing all the artwork. We went out and got ice cream afterwards to celebrate.

Zoo Field Trip

 We're going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo!

These happy third-grade girls got to go to the zoo with their classmates on Wednesday, and this lucky mama got to go along as a chaperone!

 I was in charge of five sweet kiddos, all of whom were well-behaved and bright. We had a docent walk us around and share with us about the animals, and all was very pleasant, indeed.

 The lighting was tough, but there is a gorgeous gorilla behind the group.

 And here we have two sleeping lions, and Violet being silly.

 Papa lion woke up! So majestic!

 We all enjoyed the bird show.

 And then it was time for lunch at the park, where we found Melanie. Christina now works at a school, but she was able to arrange the day off so she could also chaperone. It was great to hang out with her during the school day a bit during our lunch break.

Here's Mrs. Breneman's class! It was a beautiful day, weather-wise, perfect for our trip. A perfect day altogether!

Disney Day

We had a free Friday afternoon and Disney was calling... 

Check out this big girl! She's hit that 48 inch mark, or an inch or so over when she's in her tennis shoes. That means she can now ride every single ride at Disneyland/California Adventure, including the Incredicoaster.

It was our first time on the ride since it was rebranded to feature the Incredibles movies, so I forced Violet to pose near her namesake.

This was Violet's first roller coaster with a loop - she loved it (despite her suspect expression)!

Cora's now a full-fledged Marvel fan, and she can't wait for the transformation of A Bug's Land into a Marvel-themed area. She's calling it Iron Man Land, since he's her favorite and Stark Industries is apparently building it. (Nice touch, Disney!)

The girls love spending time in the Animation Academy; this time, we produced Jack Skellington. Violet added Mickey ears and a churro to hers, since the lead artist kept mentioning churros during the class.

We then went into the next animation area, where the girls created their own cartoons.

Next was time for Guardians of the Galaxy, Violet's favorite ride.

Later, we went into Disneyland for Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Tiki Room. Before we headed home, we relaxed and watched early Mickey Mouse cartoons from the late 1920s.

The girls conked out in the car - not common for me to see sleeping children behind me anymore!

I was shocked to see Stace still awake when we got home - he was playing a soccer game on Cora's Playstation! So, we all had a very entertaining evening.

Halloween Night Fun

After popping in to Jen and Trent's party for an hour or so, we went trick-or-treating with Jake, Charlie, Kelly and Yass.

Cora was well into her role as the creepy girl with the headless doll.

For the first time in our years of trick-or-treating, we crossed over into the school/park neighborhood, and it was lots of fun to run into so many school friends.

One street featured some awesome decorated houses.

A friendly random stranger in a Fortnite costume was so impressed with Violet's homemade costume, she asked for a photo with Vi and handed her a set of "medkits" from the game. (They were simply store-bought, wrapped chocolate bars in disguise.)

Our trick-or-treating crew this year...

Jake was slightly more in costume than it looked, but covered it with his sweatshirt.

And, it came time for the annual Great Candy Trading Event (and giving event - both girls were generous with Twixes for their dad).

Halloween Class Parties

Halloween fell on a Wednesday this year, and I was happy to get to help out in both of the girls' class parties.

I found Miss Lotito's message to her class to be so sweet and caring -  I can see why Cora loves her!

Cora's class made poseable mummies out of wire and strips of muslin; ate graveyard pudding (chocolate pudding topped with crushed oreos and gummy worms); and made popcorn gloves to enjoy later in the day when they watched a movie after lunch. Yes, it was a fun day for these 6th graders!

I hoped to get a sweet photo of myself and Cora, but had to settle for this. Great string cheese 'stache, Cora!

Talented Dinorah, our room mom, painted on the kids' faces and arms.

We mamas will miss these fun volunteer opportunities next year when these kiddos are off to junior high!

Here's Cora with her mummy (and without her string cheese), showing the class's spooky artwork - Cora's is the one in the top left corner with the church steeple in blue.

While filling their popcorn gloves, Jake had a very crucial point to make, using the measuring scoop for emphasis. It was probably related to Fortnite, their favorite game to play together after school.

I then moved on to Violet's classroom, where the third graders created stained glass jack-o-lantern jars, like Cora did in third grade.

Violet was very pleased with her finished product, and had it glowing with the battery-operated tealight when we got home.

(Sadly, this is the only jack-o-lantern we made this year! No time to carve pumpkins, a first for our family. Sniff!)

Here's Violet and her favorite friend, Kat. Yes, they're the same age, just on opposite ends of the growth charts.

I so appreciate being able to help out in class at these fun events. I wouldn't trade these moments for any amount of money.