Christmas and more

 We celebrated Christmas a little early here at home before heading up to see Emily. Marian could not make it as she seems to be always at work these days.

We certainly didn't want to drag all our presents up to Idaho just to open them with Emily. I don't think we even had the room if we wanted to. Terry left us a Christmas card with our gift in it when he was up earlier for our Christmas dinner. Cheri sent Christmas gifts back with us when we were up in Oregon. Even Marian had previously left a few Christmas gifts for some of us when she was here a few months ago.

Since we opened  our gifts early, we let Emily open hers the same evening we arrived up in Idaho, even though it wasn't quite Christmas yet. It took us only 12 hour to get there!

Caitlyn basically got a lot of things for college. Emily got a lot of things for the cold wet winters of Idaho. Caitlyn made neat grab bar handles and a new keychain for Christian's TJ out of 550 paracord. They turned out really neat. I was the only one taking pictures this year so no pictures with my presents. 

All of Emily's roommates were gone for the holidays so we were able to stay with her at her apartment. We certainly would not been able to camp in that weather. It was so cold and the wind seemed to be always blowing.

The next day, we went out for a drive to see if we could explore more of the area. Unfortunately, as with previous explorations in Idaho, we could not find a whole lot of places off the beaten path to explore. None of the smaller dirt roads were plowed, so we could not even attempt to enter them as the snow plowed on the main roads would have piled up a huge burm at the beginning of the trail that we would not be able to go over. The only useable roads are used by snowmobiles. We even crossed over to Montana several times in our search.

We did find a road on the Montana side that looked promising and Christian put on the chains to see if we could get through, but the snow was too deep here. It didn't help that we forgot our tools and the tensioners for the chains so Christian froze his hands trying to get the chains on in the first place. We were able to get down a little ways and have some fun in the snow, but decided that the snow was just too deep in sections to continue. 

It was Christmas Eve. We stopped by the store on our way home to stock up on a few supplies to last us through our visit as Emily didn't have much at home. I had brought some groceries with us to make our annual "reunion" or winter solstice soup. We used the bowls that Marian gave us for Christmas. It's everybody's favorite soup and unfortunately, we usual eat until it hurts and then eat some more.

Even though it was butt cold, we went for a short walk around the temple while Caitlyn stayed in, hiding in Emily's room. We watched movies afterwards using Christian's laptop and Emily's bluetooth speaker.

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On Christmas morning, everyone slept in as there were no presents to open anyway. We already opened them all! We took a walk on campus and I forced everyone to pose for family pictures since we did not send out Christmas cards again this year since we normally take it in November to print cards on time. 

When we got back, we had lunch and sent pictures and greetings out to family and friends. Emily made us some curry for dinner. We watched another movie and called it a day. The weather forecast said that it would snow almost the entire time we were there, but it only snowed a little bit but mostly the wind just blew the existing snow around.

The next day, we decided to try our hand at exploring the area one more time. This time, we were just going to stay somewhat locally. We found some alternate camping areas for when the weather is a bit fairer. 

At one point, we were playing around and tried to get up a steep hill. We didn't quite make it at first and the vehicle started rolling back down the hill. We tried it a couple more times and we would have made it the last time, but the computer freaked out and put the transmission in limp mode. We couldn't get any real power to the drivetrain. We started to panic. We were not sure if something happened to the car or if it was just a computer problem...either way, we didn't have enough power to make it back to Emily's much less home. We tried turning off the car several times to try to get the stupid computer to reset. We were searching through the manual for a way around the problem. Finally, Christian just disconnected the battery to reset the stupid computer and it was fine after that. Emily had meanwhile found a fix on YouTube on how to get around the problem, but it was pretty convoluted. It's like turning around and doing the hokey pokey while holding down this button or something. 

Anyway, we were not very happy about the situation and it spoiled all our fun while inciting a great deal of stress. We would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere 1,000 miles from home in the middle of a snow storm because when all this was happening, we all got snow squall warnings on our phones!  As soon as we were able, we fled the area we were at and moved away from the more immediate weather systems and we went into the sand dune area. That area was fine for a while, but the squall moved in and covered our road with snow again. Caitlyn was getting some practice driving in snowy/icy conditions. At some point, the snow got too deep and she drifted off the track a bit. We got stuck in the snow. It was pretty deep. Christian went out to dig our tires out. While he was working on that, a beefed up Jeep pulled up behind us. Christian just told them to go around. The made it around us, but got stuck just ahead of where we were. They had huge knobby tires, so they tried several times to continue, but only got a few inches each time. They finally gave up and backed back out. They offered to pull us out. Although Christian had us mostly dug out, he went ahead and let them pull us out with our dynamic rope since we've never used it yet. It didn't take much to get us out. We got turned around to head back and the Jeep gave up and left as well.

Christian was hurting pretty bad from the cold and wind. He drove most of the way out and Emily took over as his head hurt too much. She would plow into these drifts and the snow would totally cover the windshield so that we could not see where we were going. It was a bit scary but she kind of got the hang of it and went a bit slower.

By the time we got back, Christian got warmed up and was feeling better. Even so, we mostly just stayed in for the rest of the day. It was Sunday, so we didn't want to pick up any more food or supplies. Since Emily's kitchen isn't very stocked, we through together some pork fried rice for dinner and packed up our stuff to return home. 

Originally, we were supposed to head into Utah and do some camping, but because of the weather, we decided to just head home. We were supposed to have a small window (about half a day) of clear weather before the new system came in so we got up very early and headed out, hoping to stay ahead of the weather system. As usual, the forecast was useless. We got snowed on just after leaving Rexburg and it continued through most of Idaho. We had to deal with snow, ice, rain and a constant head wind but we made it through to Las Vegas okay. That's when things took a nasty turn. Not so much the weather, but the traffic. It was stop and go traffic all the way through to California. We finally jumped off the freeway and headed out into the Mojave on smaller roads and cut down into Joshua Tree and Yucca. Lots of crazy drivers on those roads still. Once we hit Moreno Valley back on the main freeway though, it became a literal parking lot. We just sat there with the engine off for a while before we were able to proceed the rest of the way home. 

It took us 12 hours to get there, but it took us 15 hours to get back! 

December

It seemed like we had a lot of things going on December. We hit the ground running by doing an early Christmas dinner with Christian's dad and Jackie at the beginning of the month because we only had a few weekends available and everyone gets busy this time of year. 

We had to smog Caitlyn's Jeep...which seems oddly early since we didn't buy it until after Christmas two year's ago. On top of that, we had to get Christian's Jeep smogged as well so that we could get it registered. After Christian replaced the oxygen sensor, we had no problems getting it to pass the smog check. We still had some problems getting the Jeep registered though. We went to the DMV add they wanted additional paperwork from the dealer saying that the vehicle was never registered in Oregon. The paper trail for that Jeep was really ridiculous. It was last titled in California but it was sold to a dealer in Nevada. I believe the woman traded it in for something else at the dealership since she worked there. The dealer didn't want to deal with it, so they sold it in an auction to the dealer in Oregon. When we bought it, they didn't even have the title yet, but obviously, the vehicle was physically in Oregon when we bought it and brought it back to California. Anyway, the paper trail was really sketchy. Christian's mom got a letter from the dealer stating the problem and Christian was able to take it in with the title and bill of sale to finally get it registered but we totally got reamed in sales tax for a vehicle that was not every sold or bought in California!!!

In addition, we found out that the key and ignition was worn out because, at some point, the key fell out with the engine running and the engine kept running without the key being in the ignition! We went to several locksmiths and the dealer to see how we could fix it. It was a costly nightmare in itself. The first locksmith wanted to get the parts from the dealer and wanted to charge a ton to get the work done. They e-mailed Christian a lower rate but quoted us a totally, much higher rate when we went in. We then went to the dealer to order the parts and decided to keep looking for another locksmith since the dealer wanted an exorbitant amount to do the work as well. We found out that the second locksmith we went to could have done everything for us at a much lower rate. He did a great job for much less so we went back to order some more spares.

It was raining the day we ran around to get all this done and we found out that the hardcover and door seals on the Wrangler leaks like a sieve. We are now looking into getting those replaced. Christian managed to change the engine oil, the transmission fluid and the back differential. The front will be next on his list.

In between all that and finishing up with school, Christian continued to work on Caitlyn's bumper. We originally started to put the thing together a couple of months ago but found that the bumper didn't fit. We thought that stupid JCR sent us the wrong parts again and since we bought it like a year ago and hadn't gotten around to putting it together, we were SOL. We cut some pieces of metal to extend the bumper so that it would fit the vehicle only to find out that we actually mixed up the main part of the back bumper with the main part of the front bumper, which is actually why it did not fit. We had to cut the spot welds off and switch the parts. Luckily, he had only spot welded the pieces together, so it was not too much of a chore. 

It still did not fit as well as it should have so we had to cut out notches in it and shim other parts so that it would fit better. We are pretty disappointed with JCR because of the quality of the products and their very crappy customer service. I don't think we will buy from them again, even with another Jeep to work on.

It looks nice now that Christian had to tweak the crap out of it to get it to line up and fit.

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Meanwhile, we found out Emily decided to drop all her classes even though she was nearing the end of the semester. A good friend of hers got hit by a car in the crosswalk near her apartment complex and died. She was pretty distraught. She really needed to be able to concentrate and pull through this semester with good grades since she did not do so well last year and she didn't want to risk it. This is the first time someone close to her has died. Her grandfather didn't really count since she was never that close to him.

We understand her choices but we are a little worried about her. Luckily she is still working at her temporary job and is able to stay and support herself, if only barely. They have agreed to keep her on a little longer after the holidays so hopefully that will turn into something good for her. She won't be coming home during her break though, so we will join her in Idaho for Christmas.

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Caitlyn finally hunkered down and filled out her college applications. Although, at the last minute, after visiting with our friends for a Christmas get together, she decided that she was going to apply to Provo as well as Idaho. Except Provo requires four essays in their application, so she was scrambling to get it done in time.

At the same time, she was getting ready for her finals and she had her last behind the wheel driving lesson. That's not to say that she was totally overwhelmed. She did have to study a little for a couple of her finals but for the most part, she could have nearly skipped some her finals and still gotten an A in the class.

After classes were done, she and her friends got together for a luncheon and gift exchange. They were also sort of celebrating her completion of her classes for high school. She won't get her final grades until the beginning of next year and no actual graduation unless she wants to return in May to walk with the rest of her classmates, but basically, she is done.

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Before leaving for Idaho, we had a little extra time and decided to go test out the Wrangler off-road and spend some time with Christian's dad. We met up and headed out to the Anza Borrego desert. We did not go very early though as we did not want to get stuck in the morning commuter traffic.

It was a pretty nice day out. Rain is expected soon so the timing was pretty good. We were trying to find a road out to a huge trestle bridge out there but apparently, you can only go so far in vehicles. The rest of the way needs to be hiked. I don't think any of us were ready to do that on this day.

We wandered through the trails a bit more and called it a day. 

We returned to Ramona for some Mexican food for dinner. Christian's dad sprung for dinner. We packed sandwiches and chips for our drive. The Jeep handled everything great, even though the suspension is shot and we put on Caitlyn's old decrepit tires on it.