Holiday Homecomings

The whole neighborhood is decorated with lights, and the hills are starting to green up. Diamond is back from Idaho. Let the holidays begin! Well, maybe not quite. . . .

The kids had school all week, and they have one more before getting their break. Mike had meetings all day Monday. The kids drove Hallie crazy. Good thing she can just send them outside.

On Wednesday, we took a look at a charter/homeschool option for Landon. He wants to be home, and we want to give him at least some school structure. The advantage to this school is that while there are classes on site two days a week (optional) and a curricular structure, we have our choice of the actual curriculum we use, and he can do the bulk of his work from home. Mike can take and pick him up on his way to and from work at CLU. 

The kids are making more fun crafts at school.

Mike hung exterior lights on the house.

We received a Harry and David gift box from our friend Claudia.

Royal Riviera pears! Oh, boy! 

We got a big rainstorm by California standards Thursday night into Friday. It caused mudslides and flooding in areas of town up by hillsides whose foliage had burned in the 2013 fires. Hallie knows one of the families from when they used to live in Thousand Oaks. 

Hallie worked Friday during the day, so Mike had Eliza. Mike's helping edit a textbook. He took her with him on the job, and she did surprisingly well (technology helps). While Mike was teaching up at CLU in the evening, Hallie and the kids decorated sugar cookies with Grandma and Grandpa B. and Hillary.

Diamond came home for Christmas on Saturday. After picking her up from the airport, Hallie and the kids went to Cafe Rio and then went back to the university to pick Mike up before taking the scenic back roads home as the sun set in a glowing orange sky over Pleasant Valley in the west.