Day out with the Ladies

 

After a full week of Cora's show, I took Sunday off and went to a museum and early dinner with friends.

We went to the Getty Villa, the Greek/Romanesque estate John Paul Getty built to house his antiquities in the 1970s. 

The beautiful property is between Pacific Palisades and Malibu, overlooking the ocean off Pacific Coast Highway,, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful early November day.

Sue and I are checking out an ancient Egyptian mummy.

This was one of the three special exhibits, a gold bust of emperor Marcus Aurelius. 

Another of the special exhibits - an intricately carved bronze figure of a horse and rider from 500 BC, found in Albania.

The most fascinating special exhibit was a collection of scrolls and mummy wrappings from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

So many awesome and ancient things! I took a lot of photos for the girls, especially Cora.

We then went down to the Malibu Pier for a late lunch/early dinner.

My tacos were fancy, filling and delicious.

Such a great day out with lovely ladies!

Puffs, Friends, Fam and Volunteering

 We all enjoyed seeing Puffs!

 Cora's fans follow her, even when she changes schools and their kids don't attend the same school anymore!

For the Saturday night show, Coach Greg, Jen and Sue and Pauly made it out.

We managed to get a family shot this time after forgetting to with her last show.

(Also - FOR THE RECORD - I am the shortest in the family but Cora IS wearing very tall heels. Thank you for listening.)

JT, Jim and the kids came all the way from La Verne on Saturday afternoon! We so appreciate them making the long drive out to support Cora.

On Friday night, we had Christina, Mrs. Hawthorne and another former Meadows teacher, and Colleen, Rigo and Liana. 

Cora's theater friend from her old school, Abbie, came out with her mom.

And Cora's other friends Sadie and Grace also came out - she was so glad to see them! Other friends of Cora's came out but I didn't get photos of everyone. 

Cora had fun getting to know Lucas, who played Oliver, and introduced him to Dungeons and Dragons.

As usual, our family was as helpful as we could be with the sets and props. 

My dad took the headshots and the promotional photos, and I made the cast photo board and wrote the press release that the local newspaper ran (below) with Dad's photo.

Puffs!

Cora performed in her first show at her new high school, and of course we think she did very, very well.

She played Megan Jones in Puffs, a parody of a certain popular wizarding book and movie series set in England.

Megan is a goth kid who has a great character arc in the play, and this is one of the best moments. It's near the end when she finally admits to being a Puff, one of the four houses at the school.

 

Here are Wayne, Oliver and Megan, the three leads. Cora had her first love story in the play, with Oliver.

Xavia, on the right, was Megan's mom who was evil and wanted to work for the Dark Lord.

The play, like the wizarding series, takes place over a number of school years, and the three friends wrote each other letters in the summer.

The House Elf Bippy was one of the funniest characters in the play and made Cora break into laughter a few times.

It was fun to see Cora in a comedy, and she drew plenty of laughs. The final show's audience was especially appreciative of all the humor, which was more apparent the more closely you follow the Potter series.

Halloween Happenings

 Halloween time!

This time, it came at the same time as tech week for Cora's next high school theater show. She had a rehearsal before it was time for fun. 

Stace handled the trick-or-treaters out front with our neighbors, and Melanie, Nick and Ellie came over after going first to their close friends' house. 

Cora went to school like this - yellow contacts and all. She loved the reactions she was getting from everyone.

Violet kind of skipped Halloween day this year; Liana made plans with her school friends and didn't come over to trick-or-treat. She couldn't figure out a costume, though she'd had several ideas.

Violet did have fun at Trunk or Treat at VUMC, as did Ellie, though it doesn't look like she was enjoying being inside the MG.

Here's Violet having fun with Liana at our friend Christine's trunk and toss game.

Check out that dragon!

The girls went from this event to their youth group Halloween party. They've been going together to the Wednesday youth group at the church they went to Hume Lake with over a year ago.

Hiking and Car Repair

 We're back home after a smooth travel day Thursday - we took the train from Yeovil to Woking, and a bus to Heathrow. A bit of shopping at the airport, a bit of snacking, and we were on our plane and off to L.A. I was catching a cold Stace had, so it felt like a very long flight, but all went very well.

Many thanks to my dad for driving our girls around and keeping an eye on them overnight. 

On Monday, Vi and I took advantage of her new school schedule by going on a little photography expedition after class, and then a hike up the Placerita waterfall trail. 

Still a stream! This time, in October, it was full of acorns, visible on the lower left.

What a blessing this time is with this girl!

Stace repaired his MG's speedometer over the weekend and, um, had a little trouble extricating himself from the car.

He got it fixed, though!

We'll soon be changing the clocks back, but for this past weekend, the sun was rising after 7 a.m. This allowed me to get up and on the hill to see it very low in the sky. It was beautiful. 

On Saturday, Cora went to her first DTASC, or festival competition put on by the Drama Teachers Association of Southern California. She took part in a little musical number from the movie Corpse Bride. We'll get to see it early next year when they perform it for the parents.

Final Day Fun

On our final night in town, we went with Dean, Jenny and Livi to Sherborne for the annual Pack Monday Fair. Seeing the abbey lit up at night was great, too. 

Another October event I've never been over to attend, Pack Monday is a huge street fair that went for many blocks, with dozens of vendors selling crafts, goods, food and drinks. Bands were playing and the whole town seemed to have turned up.

This cool little stone building in front of the Tudor building is called the Conduit, and it was built in the 16th century as the washing place for the abbey's monks. 

We found a few souvenirs to buy, along with yummy drinks and snacks. It was great fun hanging out with the family, doing a fun even like this, and I was so glad we were here for it.

Earlier Monday, we went to Auntie Doreen's house after lunch with her and Mandy, Karen and Sue and Gord. We had to go over, to meet her new kittens!

Dolly and Teddy were just 6 weeks old, and as adorable as they come. 

We could all just watch them for hours, as they played, climbed things, and suddenly napped.

And a final photo memory of our trip - one of our meals that Stace particularly enjoyed.