April

Christian and I drove out to Orange County to meet up with a couple of my old friends from my Isuzu days. One of them is about to get married and move across the country. It was really nice meeting up with them for dinner. I haven't seen them in so long. We are going to attempt to get together one more time before Cindy takes off.
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We went down to San Diego the day before Caitlyn's birthday to celebrate Christian's youngest brother's birthday. Garth turns forty this year. It was quite a mile stone since they was not sure he would survive this long. He is severely autistic and lives in a group home. Christian's dad had a big party set up for 3 or 4 of the homes along with family, of course. He had the party catered with Mexican food. They even made homemade tortillas and everything on-site. I have to say, it was pretty good.

Afterwards, we stopped by his sister's house to chat for a while before heading back home.

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The next day was Caitlyn's Birthday. She turned 13. She is officially a teenager. We gave her one of Christian's presents before church so that she could wear it.

After church, we were going to continue with her birthday celebrations. I came home early during the third hour to get lunch ready for everyone. When Christian came home with the girls, however, he saw that there was smoke coming out of one our neighbors houses. But the neighbor was outside walking around nonchalantly outside of his home. He even waved at Christian. Christian came in and told me about it. He said that it seemed like his house was on fire but didn't seem to care or notice. He went back out to talk to him. Jim, our neighbor, was just walking back into his house. He told us later that he was about to jump into the shower. Christian had to knock on his door to tell him that he thought his house was on fire. He didn't even know. He had apparently smelled something but didn't think anything of it. The fire started in the wiring in his attic apparently so the smoke went up through his whirly birds and didn't even set off his fire alarm. 

Jim called the fire department and shut off his gas and electricity. He then went up on the roof with a hose to try to send water down into the attic. It didn't seem to do any good. His direct next door neighbor came out of the house and took up her hose to shoot towards his house but she was down on the ground and not near the house, so the only thing she managed to do was to water his lawn! Christian came back to change out of his church clothes and we hear the fire department coming in the distance.

By the time the fire department got here, Emily said that she could see orange flames starting she shoot out above the roof. They sent at least six fire engines over. It filled up our entire cul-de-sac. Some got blankets and things out to cover some of their valuables inside. Others probed the roof and got a chain saw to get at the fire. It wasn't too long before they got most of it out. The roof is pretty messed up and there was a lot of water damage in the end but most of their stuff and house was saved.

If Christian hadn't gone up there to talk to Jim, he would have jumped into the shower and never noticed a thing until the roof came down over his head. It was pretty crazy. He came down to thank Christian a couple of times because, who knew what would have happened if Christian hadn't gone up to talk to him. His wife had taken off to go shopping or something when I got home and didn't come back until the fire was almost out.

They ended up renting a nearby house and packed up all their stuff while the house gets fixed. Jim's new wife figured that it would be a good time to redo their kitchen and flooring and everything, so they probably won't be back in the house until some time next year.

Anyway, that was pretty exciting, to say the least. 

We went back to Caitlyn's birthday celebration. Christian made her her favorite shao mai for dinner. She got a few more presents and cake.

We will have her birthday party next week since we were in San Diego earlier.

Spring Break

The kids had their spring break at the beginning of the month. We didn't make any big plans as Christian still had classes. He doesn't get any break between classes except for after Christmas. The kids pretty much ran around feral around the neighborhood most of the time. Either playing with Caitlyn's friend and sisters whose grandmother lives a block over from us or the kids on our street. At some point, they all converged for a short time at our house and we were inundated with girls.

We took one morning off to take the girls climbing at the Riverside Quarry. There isn't really anything new there that we are actually able to climb. Most of the things that we can do, we've already done...many multiple times. But it's still good to get out to keep in practice. Emily chose to do Inter-Planet Janet. It is one of her favorites. She likes to pull over the overhang towards the top.

We each basically got to do two climbs. It's all we had time for. Emily led both sport climbs. Caitlyn hadn't really done My Planet Janet before because she couldn't quite reach to get up the overhang. But since she is basically nearly the same height as me, she should give it a try.

She wasn't very confident about going over it at first but she did great. It's more muscle than she is used to having to use. Christian went up like he was just scrambling over a hillside in his hiking boots. I like the climb but that last overhang is pretty strenuous. If I was a little taller (and lighter), it would be pretty fun. I guess that's why Emily likes it so much!

Caitlyn chose to do Taxman Max after. Emily set up the climb and Caitlyn and I went up after her.

That one was definitely too easy for Christian, so he decided to go up Dollars and Sense which is just to the right of Taxman Max so we were able to use the same anchor. 

After that, we were basically out of time. We went home to get some lunch and Christian had to get back to his school work.

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On Thursday, we met up with Christian's sister and her family again in Joshua Tree. They got a hotel for several days in Palm Springs and took day trips into Joshua Tree.

We went out to the Barker Dam area to take them climbing again. Our first climb was out on the Keystone Block. We climbed Keystone Crack (5.6).

That was a pretty fun crack overall. The Pierces did great...well the ones that attempted it anyway. Mike didn't do any climbing on this trip. For some reason, Brandon didn't even attempt it.

Afterwards, Christian looked into doing to arete but that didn't look too safe for everyone. Caitlyn decided that she wanted to go up the insane face of the block between the crack and the arete. Christian will usually encourage her to do anything she is will to try even if it looks difficult and crazy. 

She didn't quite go up in the direction she wanted to attempt but she found a way up and did really great. It was insane. Emily couldn't let that go without a challenge and attempted it as well.

After several attempts, she was not able to figure out a way up. Caitlyn is still the reigning face climbing champion. Emily is definitely a crack climbing kind of girl. Afterwards, since Christian had to go back up to clean the anchor and stuff, he made the attempt up the face as well.

He made it up and said that it had to be about a 5.10b climb. 

We moved on to the Dissolution Corridor. Christian had us climb up the blocky dike. I don't think that it is an actual route and it was pretty hard at one point because it is really awkward and slightly overhanging.

Everyone climbed this one. I think mostly because it looked easier with all the blocks jutting out, but in reality, I thought it was a lot more difficult that the previous crack. But everyone made it up...except for Mike, since he did not climb today.

Next was the Unknown 5.6, which is just to the right of the dike. I think that the dike was a lot more rigorous than everyone hoped so not everyone bothered to go up this last climb. Christian of course went up first. We used the same anchor Christian set up for the dike. Emily, Aron and I were the only other ones that climbed this one. Mason actually attempted it but couldn't find his way up the last hurdle.

That felt a lot harder than a 5.6. I didn't like it much. We were pretty wiped after the last two climbs, so we decided to take a hike to the actual Barker Dam since Aron's family had not been there yet. 

Afterwards, we headed out of the park together and Mike took us out to dinner. We had a bit of a rocky start but overall, it was a pretty good day.

We ended the week by sitting down together to watch General Conference.