January

 Shortly after we returned from Idaho, we found out that our water heater was leaking. It wasn't super obvious at first. But Christian noticed that the floor in the bathroom was getting warped in places. After a bit of hunting around, he found that the water heater had a slow leak so we don't exactly know how long it has been leaking. We spent the New Year hunting down a new water heater and getting it installed. That was really expensive.

Christian spent the rest of his time off of work working on the TJ. He gutted the whole thing. He started out taking the dash apart to get to the heater core since it wasn't working. One thing led to another and we found out that anything that wasn't bolted down was stolen off of the Jeep and half the things that were were also missing including the bolts and nuts.  It was very disheartening. Yeah, we made sure that the Jeep ran well. The engine and transmission seems fine, but not much else. The worst thing is that the frame around the windshield, where it meets the dash, is rusted to hell. Not even sure how that much moister got trapped up there to cause that kind of damage. So this is all on top of the obvious things that we knew had to be fixed, like the suspension. The whole thing is becoming a money pit.

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Emily was working two jobs for a while to try to get enough money to stay out in Idaho and pay her bills. The seasonal job that she had was supposed to end the week before Christmas but they had her come in after Christmas for a couple more weeks. Meanwhile, she had taken a second job at a daycare facility in preparation for losing  the seasonal position. She worked there part time while she worked at her original job. When the seasonal position finally came to an end, she was able to get more hours at the daycare center. She really likes the people that she works with there. Her roommate, Lanie, helped her get her foot in the door there. The kids and some of the parents are a bit of a challenge though.

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We celebrated Chinese New Year with my family towards the end of the month. My sister and her husband just came back from Jamaica. Christopher was supposed to fly back from NY but his flight got cancelled because of the weather. Jared made it in in the late morning. 

Emily looked into flying back but we did not have a concrete plan when she first thought of it and by the time we did make concrete plans, the price of the flight tripled in price.

Caitlyn had to work so she could not come.

Norman and his kids made it but they sat there wearing double masks and went outside to eat. His wife didn't come. As usual, she was working on month end close but I doubt that she tried very hard to come over. 

Luckily, my sister made it back about mid-week so she was able to help my mom prepare food. It is just too much work for my mom nowadays. 

We left in the middle of the afternoon. My sister had plans for the evening with her in-laws and we wanted to bring food back for Caitlyn.