December

The month started off pretty rough. I got jury duty. We figured that it might be better to just get it over with instead of trying to postpone it and having it land on an even more inconvenient date. After all, I've been called in tons of times and they've never kept me. I usually get kicked off the jury if I ever make it into the court room. Lots of times, I just have to call in for the week. If I have to actually go in, sometimes I am done by lunch. The longest it has taken is a day and a half. 

My group didn't have to go in Monday. On Tuesday, my group got called in. I was immediately assigned to the first court room. I ended up being the alternate for the jury by the end of the first day. By the next day, one of the other jurors dropped out and I ended up as one of the main jurors. It was a civil case and not very exciting. They estimated that it would take at least 6 days before we would be able to begin deliberations. We didn't have to go in Friday though, so I was able to get some things done at home. 

Christian's dad and his wife came over to celebrate Christmas with us. We made dinner and got to visit briefly with them.

My jury duty resumed on Monday but after much humming and hawing, the two parties came to some kind of resolution and settled the case. After all the headache having to go to court, once you are reconciled to your fate and get comfortable with the schedule, I kind of wanted to see it through so I was a little disappointed and relieved at the same time. I think the defendant would have lost anyway, he didn't have much of a case up to this point and his lawyers were awful. I wanted to bang my head against the wall every time it was their turn to cross exam the witnesses. Even the judge seemed pretty fed up with their antics. 

Since I was done though, I was able to go run more holiday errands. Our plans were to go visit with the girls in Idaho as they were going to stay up there for school. We were not comfortable with them driving in the bad weather to come home and Caitlyn was not comfortable having to pay for that much gas to get home! The girls wanted a few supplies from the Chinese market. I had to get the Christmas cards out, wrap presents and bake treats. Christian was done with school at the end of that week and we were able to start planning the details of our trip. 

We went to visit with my mom since we would not be in town for the holidays. She ordered some lunch and my brother joined us so we got to catch up a little bit. 

We resumed our trip preparations at this point. We needed to put the off-road tires on Christian's truck as they are rated for snow. We knew that we had to change out one of the tires as there was a slow leak on one of the valves from when we got them. We ordered them online and they seemed to have damaged the valve while installing the tires on the rims. It was not noticeable at all initially but we soon realized that there was a slow leak from the valve which, over time, became worse. We had set time aside to do this but had forgotten that we broke our tire changing tool so we were in a bit of a bind. Christian figured out how to fix it but needed a tool in order to do so. The tool would not be available in time though. In addition, when Christian rolled out the other tires to put on the truck, he discovered that one of the other tires had something stuck in in. It had definitely leaked since we put them in storage but we did not know how much. We couldn't pull out the object as we could not repair it without the tire changer and didn't want to take it in for someone else to do these things as we have not had very good luck getting any reliable service on our vehicles in the past.

At this point, we were wondering if we could go on this trip at all. Things were not looking too good. In the end, we put the two questionable tires in the back and inflated them up to see how bad the leakage was by morning. They didn't seem too bad, so we decided that we would just keep an eye on them and proceed with our plans to go up to Idaho to see the girls.

Unfortunately, we also found out that the girls would not have the apartment to themselves. Far from it, they had three new roommates move in during the break!

Our plans to travel kept changing since the weather reports kept changing but we were finally reconciled to just head out and hope for the best. Christian and I exchanged gifts before going so that we wouldn't have to drag extra gifts back and forth. It turns out that we both mostly got each other gifts that we could use on the trip, so we brought them with us after all. I got Christian a new GoPro. It's an older version but newer than what he has now. Christian got me a neat new camping chair. We always want to bring chairs, but the ones we have are too big and we never have enough room for them.

Even though Christian's truck is huge and we should have had plenty of space since the girls were not traveling with us, it still seemed that we filled it up. We brought an extra spare tire (just in case), so that took up a great deal of room. We had all our recovery and emergency tools and air compressor. We had all our camping supplies and food, plus we brought the heater and plenty of fuel. Then we had a box of supplies for the girls and their gifts and treats, so it was quite full by the time we put our personal affects in the truck.

The trip to Idaho is about 13 hours away. We didn't really hardly stop except for gas and to use the bathroom so we made pretty good time. We usually drive under the speed limit for better gas mileage but for a trip like this, it is better to keep up with the speed limit as time and fatigue is definitely our enemy. Emily made curry for dinner and saved some for us. It is so great to have such capable and responsible kids. We are very proud of them.

We had a late dinner while the girls got to open their gifts early. None of us wanted to wait.

The girls got us gifts too. Christian got a book on gears and a tool that will let him open up an oil filter so that he can inspect it. I got a new big cookie cutter as mine is not doing that well and a new camping kettle. 

It was late by the time we stopped chatting. I had planned to stay with the girls but Christian planned to go camp in the dunes as the girls are in an all girl apartment and they were almost all there through the break.

In the morning, Emily made us breakfast but we got a late start since we slept in a bit after our late night. we decided to go for a drive.We made it out to Wyoming but didn't find anything terribly interesting. The off-road trails during the winter seems to be groomed for snow mobiles. It doesn't leave us much areas to explore. Emily suggested for us to stop by Fall Creek Falls on our way back and that was a great choice. The area was really beautiful and there was only one other family there to go fishing.

Normally, there is too much water in the snake river to get down to the falls, but in the winter, you can traverse it a bit easier. There is less water but you have to hike down a snowy, slippery and kind of steep embankment.

It was truly beautiful. Christian got up close and personal for some video shots and got a bit wet. Of course, Emily went a little ways as well but luckily, she thought better of it before getting to the really sketchy parts. Christian opted for the firmer wet ground rather than trying to traverse the sketchy parts to attempt to stay dry.

Christian was able to sleep really well initially even in the snow but later, a bunch of idiots went out there in the middle of the night to tear up the dunes and screaming and no doubt, drinking into the early morning hours. We didn't get to do too much else as we initially planned to take the girls camping for a couple of days in Northern Utah where it would be a bit warmer but a new storm system was coming in and we didn't think that that was going to be the greatest idea. We mostly just hung out and visited with each other while keeping an eye on the ever changing weather. Caitlyn found a junk yard in Idaho Falls but they didn't have any XJ parts. They did, however, have ZJ parts so Christian and Emily spent a morning trying to get missing or broken parts for her ZJ. They actually found quite a few useful items there. One of the things the girls wanted was to have our traditional soup for the Winter Solstice, so we brought supplies up for that. 

At some point, we knew the weather was definitely coming in. We were going to get a big dump of snow and by the time that clears, it was going to get super cold. Christian wasn't getting enough rest and it was going to get pretty serious out there so we decided that we should just take the opportunity to head home.

Just to put it in perspective, when first got there, the temperature was below 30° F when Christian set up camp...which is still below freezing, but on Christmas morning when I got up in Riverside, it was 3° F in Rexburg well after the sun was up. We were sad that we had to cut our trip early, but it was definitely the right choice.