June

As Christian began his Summer Break, he spent the first week taking care of some much needed chores on our vehicles. We don't get to wash our cars nearly enough, especially since they all basically sit outside in the elements all the time. So he washed, clay barred and waxed all three of our (currently useable) vehicles in turn. 

Since we have to go up to Oregon to tow Emily's new Jeep back for her, we also had to take care of all the maintenance on the F-150 before having to drive thousands of miles towing a heavy vehicle. So he had to change the oil and transmission fluid and check over a number of other items. 

In the end, we decided that we would tow the JK from Oregon to Idaho so that Emily could have the car now. In return, we will be able to tow the XJ back with us so that we can start working on the many maintenance issues and repairs that we planned to work on this summer...especially since we are no longer trying to get the ZJ in operation by the end of summer.

We did manage to take a day off in the midst of some of this work to go up the Idyllwild to drive up the Black Mountain Pass. We drove up part of the trail before when we went up to Fuller Ridge but we never finished it to the end as we got side tracked exploring the area.

Part of the trail was very muddy and challenging. Apparently, the new mud terrains work very well in actual mud!

Even though it is June in Southern California, the summer has been fairly mild so far, even though the heat is definitely starting to ramp up. Because of the mild weather and all the extra rain we've gotten, there were still lots of wildflowers everywhere.

I can get around with just one crutch or cane now so it was nice to get out of the house and start moving around a little bit.

The only problem though, was that the oil pressure gauge kind of went haywire while on our trail. It kind of went on and off for a bit until Christian went and unplugged the sensor completely. Strangely enough, it was still showing that the vehicle had oil pressure but it drove normally without it. It didn't make any sense.

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My mom called and wanted to know if we were interested in making Zongzi for the Dragonboat Festival out of the blue. She didn't think that she was going to put in all the work to make them again. She actually gave us some of her equipment because our family loved them the most and would be the only ones who would even consider putting in all the work to make them. I guess she had some friends make them and shared a sample of theirs with her, which inspired her to try making them again. We love them, so we definitely agreed to go over and help. My brother and his daughter came to lend a hand as well.

It was Lauren's first time trying her hand at making them. Our family has not made them in a long time. I think she was too young to attempt it the last time we made it. Unfortunately, my mom saw a marked increase in the prices of the ingredients, and we definitely noticed a marked decrease in the quality of some of the supplies which caused much difficulty. Namely, the salted duck eggs were not made right and the bamboo leaves were small and too narrow in addition to being old, brittle and damaged. It was a bit frustrating to wrap. But in the end, they came out pretty decently, if a little on the small side.

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We spent what time was remaining, getting ready for the trip to Oregon. It was a bit chaotic and frenzied trying to make sure everything at the house was taken care of, making sure the vehicle was ready, shopping and packing for intermittently camping on our trip and wanting to bring the girls some things while we were making our way up there.