New Year's Eve

We planned to get together with my brother and his kids to go hiking in the Santa Monica mountain area on New Year's Eve. My sister and her oldest had even decided to join us. Although, Christian and I were still sore, we were still going to suck it up and attempt to go. The hike wasn't supposed to be too difficult. We had planned to spend the night at my brother's place and get together with my mom the next afternoon to all make steamed buns (bao) together. My brother had all of us watch Pixar's new short "Bao" and we got the recipe that the director shared from her mother and we thought it would be fun to try it out.

However, early in the morning, we got a phone call that woke us all up. My father had passed away. After his recent hospital stay, they confirmed that he had brain damage from when he choked and stopped breathing. They could not confirm how extensive the damage was. But since he had spiraled into dementia and now had some brain damage on top of that, the prognosis was not good. We all got together that weekend to go see him and possibly say goodbye. His eyes fluttered open here and there briefly but never seemed to wake up. He seemed to be in some intermittent discomfort. He was breathing on his own but they still put an oxygen tube in to help him. He had some phlegm in his throat that they would occasionally have to suction out.

After several more days with no change, we had decided that it was time to "pull the plug," so to speak. There was no hope for any real quality of life left. He was basically a vegetable. It seemed cruel to leave him trapped in his body with no real hope of recovery. Without any change in his condition, the hospital would have to put his oxygen through his trachea and put a feeding tube through a hole in his stomach since they could not leave all the tubes down his throat that he has had for some time now. It would cause other problems to leave them for too long. We did not want them to put any more holes in him to prolong his suffering. We had them remove all his tubes. They gave him some morphine to keep him comfortable. He still continued to hang on, only he seemed to lie more comfortably without all the tubes down his throat. They still offered him oxygen through a mask to help him to stay comfortable. Several more days passed with no change. My mom and sister had to then make arrangements to move him back to the nursing home that he had been staying in as they could not let him stay in the ICU. He was still going pretty strong although he never regained any more consciousness than having his eyes flutter open briefly.

The evening before he passed, the nurse noted that his breathing began to get shallow. He passed peacefully shortly after 5:am.

We decided to continue with our plans to head to my brother's house but decided to nix our hiking plans in lieu of spending time with my mother. When we arrived, we decided to just move up our plans to make the steamed dumplings with my mom for lunch as it was too cold and misty to even take her to the park.

It was nice to spend the time together with the whole family. I am relieved that we had not decided to leave town. We had tossed around the idea, but we had no idea how much time my dad had left and the weather was not very ideal to go anywhere.

We ended up heading to my sister's house that evening and we had an impromptu family dinner and rang in the new year together that evening. We were exhausted. We didn't get to bed until late and did not sleep very well.

We woke up quite late the next morning and had brunch. We tossed around the idea of taking my mom to the park still but we could not agree to a destination and was afraid a lot of facilities might be closed due to the government shutdown. At some point, we just gave up and decided we needed to head home. We stopped by to see my mom before heading out.

El Cajon Mountain Redo

After things settled down after all the holiday celebrations, we headed down to San Diego to try El Cajon Mountain again. We tried it several years ago, but we all got heat exhaustion and have always wanted to go back to finish the two pitch climb we started.

Christian's sister's family decided to join us, so we left early in the morning and met up with them at their house. We had a quick breakfast of champions...donuts. Then went to pick up our niece from school. She had practice early in the morning. All that kind of set us back about another hour. So when we finally arrived at our destination, it was already a little after 9:am.

The hike up the mountain is grueling. It is definitely a strenuous hike. The first time, it took us two hours to make this hike in the heat. This time, it took us three hours to get to the base of our climb because we are totally out of shape. The weather, however, was about as good as it gets.

We didn't get too many pictures as the group was spread apart over the trail and frankly, I was trailing the whole time and it was all I could do to keep up. And because of the rocks and brush, it was difficult to see the next group on all the switchbacks.

We had lunch at the base of our climb. Being overly tired and hungry, we probably dawdled a bit too long. Christian led the first pitch up Bright Eyes (5.6). He used double ropes. Emily was going to go up next on one, and I was supposed to go up behind her on the other. Because rope management can be difficult and we had not done this in a long time, I didn't really go up until Emily was finished. Emily had pulled up an additional rope behind her for Caitlyn to climb. We actually brought four different ropes since we had so many people. We figured that when our family got to the top, we would set up a top rope for Aron's family to work on the first pitch while we worked on the second pitch that we didn't get to do last time.

It didn't quite work out as we had hoped. When Christian, Emily and I were at the anchor, we tried to organize the ropes and devices and it became this tangled rats nest and we were losing time fast. We only had so much daylight because of the season, so we figured that we needed to start heading down by 2:30 to have enough light to get back to the truck. When they told us that it was nearly 2:pm already, we had to give up the second pitch. Christian rappelled down and lowered Emily. I stayed up at the anchor to take pictures and Caitlyn, our niece Michaela and Aron climbed up and got lowered back down. Mike and our nephew, Brandon, wasn't that enthusiastic about the climb, so they didn't bother as we were definitely out of time but we wanted to make sure that after that strenuous hike, that everyone that wanted to climb, got to climb.

Aron belayed Christian back up to the anchor to clean up and I rappelled back down.

We were in a race with the lowering of the sun. Aron tried to help Christian coil up the ropes while Emily sorted and put away the gear. By the time Christian got back down, the bulk of our group started to head back down the trail. Christian and I finished cleaning up and putting away the gear before heading down. 

I had thought going up was difficult. Going down was worse. My legs felt like jelly and my joints felt like they were ready to give out. We did not even have time to stop to rest. We just had to keep going, but you had to be careful and go down in a controlled way or you were likely to get hurt.

The bulk of our group got back to the truck with the last of the twilight to get them across the slippery log we had to traverse to get over the mucky and stinky water in the gully. We were behind them a good 10 or 15 minutes. Caitlyn was worried that we would not be able to see and came back looking for out for us with her phone light. Fortunately, Aron figured out what she was trying to do and came back with her. I was so exhausted and it was pretty dark, I would not have been able to get back across without Caitlyn's light and Aron's help.

Mike took us all out for some hard earned Mexican food afterwards. Man, a giant carne asada burrito never tasted so good or hit the mark so well. We went back to their place to rest and chat before heading back home. We had planned to spend the night and leave in the afternoon, but I think there was some communication errors, so we just came back. I was sore for 4 or 5 days afterwards!

And after all that, we still didn't get to do the second pitch of Bright Eyes!

Christmas

We finally made it to Christmas! The Christmas tree and lights have been put up. The cards have been printed and sent. The treats have been baked and delivered. All the presents are under the tree. And school is finally over...for now.

It looks like everyone got pretty good grades this semester. Although the girls' grades won't be official until some time after their break. We know Christian, at least, got excellent grades.

Marian arrived on Christmas Eve for our annual Christmas get together. Christian slow roasted our prime rib roast, courtesy of Marian, half the day. The kids washed and vacuumed out Marian's car for her.

After our feast, Marian watched the kids practice their organ a bit to see what they've been working on. Then, we came back to watch a movie together and called it a night.

We opened presents on Christmas morning.

Presents were not quite what the kids thought they would be this year. They got put on Santa Marian's  "naughty" list. Apparently, over the summer, they made a deal with Marian to do 20 hours of service for her. She gave them a bunch of stuff they wanted for it. Well, when the deadline came, they hadn't done anything. Caitlyn made a slight attempt to do something and put in 3 hours. Emily just argued that the service was supposed to be at Marian's house...not ours.

So, Marian still packed her car and the tree with tons of gifts but there was a twist to them. The candy in their stocking was expired. The presents they opened were not really for them exactly. Some of them were actually for Christian or myself. Some of it was just household goods that we can all use like toilet paper and canned goods. There were even treats included that they would not be allowed to eat.

Emily was not very amused. Caitlyn mostly took it in stride as she figured they deserved it. Luckily, Marian had left some real gifts for them back in July so they did get a couple of real gifts from her.

They also got gifts from us.

They also got presents from Grandma Cheri. Grandpa had brought them down from Oregon earlier this month.

We got a bunch of treats and she made us all new slippers. They are really warm and comfy. So, they got a good share of presents still so don't cry for them. She is going to give them another chance to get their ours in before their birthdays or who knows what will happen then!

We had our annual Belgian waffles for breakfast. Plus Caitlyn's friend dropped off some cinnamon rolls for our family last night so we had a combination of that for our breakfast. 

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We went to my brother's house for Christmas dinner to meet up with my family. Christian made us some fresh sausages and barbecued them on my brother's grill. I made dessert. My brother made us a Christmas goose. It was the first time we got to try goose. It was pretty expensive and I didn't think that it tasted that unique from duck. Also, I think my brother's oven was too hot so the goose ended up being a little tough. My mom made some sticky rice and my sister made some bbq pork and vegetables.

After dinner, the kids got some more gifts. We had dessert and took their annual Christmas pictures together. My sister's boys were so tall before. Now all the younger kids are starting to shoot up. It is funny to compare the previous years' pictures to the present.

December

The girls started off the month by going horseback riding in Norco with the young women from church.

The girls were excited to try horseback riding again. They had gone once before. Aunt Wendy had gotten them and their cousins, an afternoon of lessons a few years back.

The first time they went out, they just went around in circles in the exercise yard. This time they got to go down a simple trail. 

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Emily's soccer season started, so it has taken over most of her time. In fact, she had the Young Women leaders drop her off at the high school in Norco for a tournament game right after going horseback riding. She missed the morning game since we had already committed the girls to go horseback riding, but made it to the afternoon game.

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My dad is in the hospital again. Apparently, he chocked while eating his dinner one evening and lost consciousness from the lack of air.. They actually had to do CPR on him, but we don't know how long they took to get him breathing again. Because his heart stopped for some time, there is now brain damage. We can't tell how extensive it is, but it is pretty bad.

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A lot of our time has been spent at church Christmas parties. The girls had a Young Women in Excellence night, we had our ward Christmas party and then attended the Messiah Sing-In. 

Emily also got to play Joy To The World on the organ during the Postlude at church last weekend. That was pretty exciting...at least for us. She did really great but she was super nervous. She messed up a little at the beginning but was able to just start over and then she played three verses with different stops with no problem. 

Caitlyn is working on a song to play at the end of the month but has been struggling with a difficult part. Hopefully she will be able to get it together in time.

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Christian finally got his student teaching assignment for next year. He will be doing his first 8 weeks at a high school in Rialto. It's a bit far but hopefully it will work out okay. We hope he will be able to get his next 8 weeks in Riverside.